


Some Practical Magick

by rainbowstrlght



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Abuse, Blood Drinking, De-Aged Characters, Domestic Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Occult, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:15:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowstrlght/pseuds/rainbowstrlght
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary One:</b> Growing up without their father, Zach and Joey stick together through thick and thin. But when they move to a sleepy community to live with their mother and aunt—both carrying on the family tradition of witchcraft—life becomes almost unbearable as social outcasts. As a teen Joey runs away to NYC, straining the boys' relationship, but their devotion to one another remains strong—through graduation, through college, through falling in love. But when Joey falls in love with the wrong man, how far will Zach go to protect his brother from harm? Detective Chris Pine would like to know this, too—and comes across a family more complex than he could've anticipated.</p><p><b>Summary Two:</b> This is an AU based off the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120791/"><i>Practical Magic</i></a>.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Practical Magick

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta:** The ever gracious [lalazee](http://lalazee.livejournal.com/), who is a treasure of a beta. Thank you so much for putting up with me, doll. ♥  
>  **Note:** This was written for Round 3 of [rpf_big_bang](http://rpf-big-bang.livejournal.com/).  
>  **Note 2:** Extra-special thanks go to [lalazee](http://lalazee.livejournal.com/), [reezee](http://reezoo.livejournal.com/), and [carouselcycles](http://carouselcycles.livejournal.com/), who all encouraged this work for many, _many_ months. This wouldn't exist without all of you, so thank you. ♥
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** None of this is real, not even in the slightest. I also don't own the rights to the movie that inspired this work, or to the book that inspired the movie. _Practical Magic_ belongs to Warner Bros. and Alice Hoffman, and I would even apologize by sending Sandra Bullock cupcakes if I could.
> 
>  
> 
>  **OMG THIS FIC HAS ART, WHAT EVEN:** [Check out the amazing poster!](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/228113.html)  
>  **HOLY COW THERE'S A FANMIX TOO? WHOA:** [The Hazards of Love.](http://rainbowstrlght.livejournal.com/207679.html)

Their father died in the early morning. The last gasp of breath from the ventilator was not even a whisper as he slipped from this world and went on to the next. 

Zach and Joey watched his chest, the blanket unmoving, with sounds of the hospital equipment suddenly too loud and drowning out hope. 

Zach saw Mama squeeze his father’s hand, her lips pressed tight as she leaned forward and kissed their father’s forehead. Grief emanating, expressing what Zach and Joey couldn’t quite grasp. 

Her breath hitched with a quiet sob. “Gone. He’s gone.”

Zach looked at his father, then looked at the large hand cradled in both of his. It hadn’t felt weird, his death. The hand hadn’t clenched, shivered, or turned ice cold. No light from heaven shone upon them all, only to take his father’s shrugged spirit. 

“Daddy?”

Zach turned his head—his older brother already had a quivering lip. Joey clutched their father’s knee in disbelief, and his eyes brimmed with tears that chipped away at Zach’s resolve. 

As nurses and doctors filed into the room, stating what they all already knew, Mama hugged both of her boys. 

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered. “We’ll be okay.”

And even though Zach was seven and Joey was nine, they both grabbed hold of her unashamed and squeezed tight. They moved as one unit into the hallway, watching as the gurney was wheeled into an elevator—the doors slowly closing on the last moments they would ever see of their father, forever. 

***

They buried him in St. Luke’s cemetery. The trees there were beautiful in russet tones, the grass a faded green. Umbrellas were out for an unexpected autumn rain, and they buried their father without one—buried him in the cold, dank ground, with only wood to protect him from the elements, from the chill. 

People threw in dirt, burying him further. Zach and Joey stood back, unable to, as Mama remained silent through the Lord’s prayer. Unlike their father, they never felt welcome at St. Luke’s for what they were.

 _God bless you, Mrs. Quinto._

For the quiet brunch afterwards, held in Auntie Marie’s home on the edge of wilderness, Zach ran out and left it all behind—left behind Mama, left behind Joey, left behind Auntie Marie and her cat and all those people he didn’t know. 

He reached a coppice of birch and oak, kicking the dirt, and scrunched his face up tight.

“ _Nnngh_.” Zach took a harsh breath to quell the tears that threatened, and wiped his nose on the black suit jacket. 

He sniffed and looked around. Seeing himself alone in the woods, it harshly broke down the dam. His chest burned, heaving and hurting, with his face red hot.

Nothing could ever hurt this bad, ever again. Never could he love someone so much, only for them to go away,  _slip away_ —waste away in front of his eyes. Mama had been so strong, only to be falling apart at the seams without their father. To be sobbing at night when she thought they were both sleeping, when both boys lay awake crying themselves. 

Things were so broken. Pop’s leukemia had been a tidal wave, washing away life so quickly. Not four months ago he was out in the yard, playing ball—tackling Joey to the ground while Zach rush-piled the both of them, laughter ringing in all their ears.

It didn’t feel real—and yet it was. The wetness of dirt and leaves was pungent in the air, the cold bleeding through shoes that hurt his feet. But what made Zach shiver was the world crowding in on him, rushing through the brain with facts that, yes: Pop was dead. It was just him, Joey, and Mama now. For the rest of their lives, forever and ever.

Zach and Joey had talked in harsh whispers of the night. They had loved him so much—Mama had loved him so much. People weren’t supposed to die when you loved them more than the entire world. 

“Daddy left us.”

In the same harsh whispers, Zach had been the older brother for a change. 

“We’re gonna stick together,” Zach promised across the space of two twin beds. “I’ll never leave you, Joey.”

And Joey, who had idolized their father like the Earth stalks the Sun, had been appeased by that. Zach would never tell a soul about the hand that had reached the other, and how Zach had held it until they both fell asleep. 

He squinted at the gray fall sky. Taking a deep breath and another swipe of sleeve across his face, Zach stood up straight in the small grove and thought his silent oath: 

He was going to go get Joey and Mama now, and take care of them. 

***

When the world decided to forget them and go back to normal, Mama had problems that Zach couldn’t fix. There were checks in the mail that helped them out, but Mama had to go back to work, and their house was suddenly too big a task. 

“You’ll each have you own room,” Mama said brightly, popping the latch for the trunk. “Auntie Marie says you can decorate however you want.”

But Zach had liked his white walls back home, where the corner of his Batman poster still hung from impatient and frustrated ripping. There his closet still bared etched initials that said  _J & Z Were Here_, and red marker where Zach decided to color the hinges.

However, Auntie Marie’s house was just  _old_. Zach looked up, box in hand, and counted the turrets and windows and balconies that had once belonged to their grandparents, but was now theirs. The gray shingles and faded colonial details on the edge of a deep forest, only separated by lawn and gardens in all four directions. 

“Zach?”

Zach looked over at Mama, clutching a box of her own, with a grumpy and brooding Joey not far behind. Joey missed their oak tree at the old house the most—the one with branches large enough to swing by, or to crawl up to hide from the world. 

Zach straightened up. “The rooms sound great, Mama.”

And he marched ahead with more confidence than he felt, and certainly with more fake graciousness than he thought he could ever stomach again. 

***

But at night, Zach could be himself. He could take his small journal in hand and find the balcony between the turrets, and look up at the cold and newly-winter sky to see the moon, full and yellow. Count the stars if he liked, find the constellations. 

Instead he looked down at the journal, where the frayed ribbon of his bookmark led him to the right page. Everyone in his family kept one of these—his mother called it a _book of shadows_ , his Auntie Marie a  _grimoire_. There was even a large family one just downstairs, passed down from generation to generation, detailing rules of living. The way they worshipped and prayed and cast magick by the state of the moon—asking the Gods for whatever they wished, be it money, love, or happiness. 

But no matter how much Zach wished, it never brought Pop back. Death was different. His spells for good luck on tests, with schoolyard bullies—all of  _those_  worked. But they felt less important now. 

“I’m never falling in love again,” Mama had cried late one night at the dining room table, comforted by Auntie Marie in the darkness, when the whole house was supposed to be asleep. 

“You will.”

“ _No_ ,” Mama had sniffed, then buried her head in her arms. “It hurts too much.”

And Mama was right—it hurt badly. Worse than anything Zach could ever imagine. 

Mama had told the story long ago, of how she had cast a love spell and their father had been there. Destiny, history— _fate_. Her one true love, practically on her doorstep as a delivery man, delivered directly to her; like a gift from the Gods. 

To Zach, it sounded absolutely  _terrifying_. 

“North, South, East and West—” Zach whispered, “I call the God and Goddess to heed my request. Wind, Air, Earth and Fire—I call you around to hear my desire.”

Zach looked at the moon nervously. He had said that part with Joey and Mama so many times—each sabbat and esbat—that it rolled off the tongue without thinking. It was their usual prayer for opening the circle of magick, which beckoned the spirits of the Earth to their doorstep. 

But as Zach stared at his scrawl on the journal page, feeling the hairs rise on the back of his neck, he felt almost…  _lost_. He had never done a  _real_  spell before. This wasn’t the kind he mumbled under his breath at school to stop a gossip, or thought in his mind as he tried to remember answers for a test. 

This was different. Those spells had been taught to him, whereas this one came from his own head. This true love spell,  _Amas Veritas_ , was meant to be very specific—the family grimoire detailed directions, but nothing more. The actual words would have to come from him. 

Zach’s fingertips flattened the page as the wind lifted a corner. 

“I wish for a love that I can’t resist—but someone so perfect, they can’t exist.” Zach licked his lips. “They’ll hear my call from miles away—with eyes bluer than the sky, and hair as yellow as…” Zach made a face. “ _Hay_.” 

Well, spells didn’t  _have_  to rhyme. But Mama insisted they were more fun, and thus more potent that way. 

“They’ll like cats and dogs, hate birds and mice—ride horses backwards, and be overly nice.”

Both of his hands bent back the journal as the wind picked up and curled the pages, making reading almost impossible. 

“They’ll whistle my favorite song, know every word by heart—“

“Zach?” 

He recognized the voice, but kept onward. “Know Spanish and Italian and— “

“What are you doing?” 

“Have their favorite shape be a—be a star—“

When the journal almost flipped out of his hands, Zach gave up on the unruly wind and slammed the book shut. He huffed at Joey, reciting elements he remembered. “Flip pancakes in the air, do a flip on a skateboard—“

Joey made a face at him as Zach continued, giving up on rhyming. 

“Makes the basket every time, wears ugly sweaters—“

“What are you listing?”

Zach gave an exasperated glance. “ _Amas Veritas_ , a love spell.” He turned back to the moon. “Is smart at everything, knows really big words. Can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards and forwards. “

“Is that even a word?” 

“Watches  _Fraggle Rock_ , likes Fruity Pebbles, doesn’t live in Pittsburgh—” 

“Then how will you ever meet them?”

“That’s the point! And they’ll have GI Joes and a really cool car. Um—” Zach clutched the book to his chest as inspiration suddenly struck him. “ _And_  an awesome scar.”

“That’s dumb.” Joey leaned against the balcony railing. “Why wouldn’t you want to meet them?”

“Because— _love_  is dumb.” 

Joey looked up at the moon. “I don’t know, love sounds exciting to me—I can’t wait to fall in love. It’s like having a best friend who likes all the same stuff you do, all the time.” 

Zach gave him an annoyed look as his mind grasped for the list he had suddenly created. Some of it was different from what he had originally written, although in the end it didn’t truly matter. What  _did_  matter was that it all constructed someone he could never meet, who could never exist—who could never make him cry, like Mama. 

“I wish for all these things, all in one person— _Amas Veritas_ , an unknowable… person.”

“You used the same word twice, that’s cheating.”

Zach wanted to throw his journal at him, but instead he took a deep breath and looked at the moon with conviction. “If it harm none, so mote it be.”

“Zach, what if you regret it?”

But when the hairs eased on the back of his neck and he felt the air around them change, Zach felt comforted knowing that love would never hurt him, ever again. 

He shoved Joey in the shoulder. “It  _won’t_.”

***

The spell might’ve worked—Zach didn’t think too much about it, after that. It locked something up inside of him, and that’s all that mattered at the time. Eventually Mama stopped crying at night and woke early in the mornings to take care of them, and things eased into some sort of normalcy. Auntie Marie assumed an eagle-eyed awareness, walking them to and from the bus stop when Mama had to work. 

And over the years, Mama never found anybody else. Zach never asked, and she never let on whether that bothered her. They stayed with reclusive Auntie Marie and her demon cat Siouxsie Sioux, and they made their own small family. It worked fairly well. 

The only thing that ever seemed out of place was—well,  _them_. 

“Witch, witch, you’re a witch!”

Zach felt the slab of mud hit his back, just as he saw Joey get it on the side of his face.

Joey turned on the chanting bullies, fists raised, and Zach grabbed him. 

“Witch, witch, you’re a witch—“

“Let me at ‘em!”

“What, and let you get suspended again?” Zach dragged him backwards across the schoolyard, knowing that once they got on the bus adults would be watching. “Auntie Marie would have your  _hide_.”

Joey struggled, but Zach used his awkward angle to an advantage and barreled him to the accordion door. He gave Joey one last shove, then walked backwards to let the door shut.

“Get out of here, you witch!”

The driver should have cared that mud caked and slid against the clear door. But as he yelled for Zach and Joey to take their seats, Zach was just glad they were safe for one more day. 

***

But at sixteen, Joey couldn’t take it anymore. 

“I can’t stand this place.”

“Joe—“

“I’m gonna go to New York.”

“Joey, what about Mama?”  _What about me?_

As Joey straddled the window ledge, he turned around and gave Zach a sad smile. “I’ll call Mama once I get there.”

“She’ll miss you.”

“Well, she’d miss me more if I jumped off a bridge.”

“Running away isn’t the answer,” Zach whined, although he understood—understood a bit  _too_  well. If kids were mean in elementary school and vicious in junior high, Zach didn’t have much to look forward to. He had witnessed Joey’s reality for almost two years now, and it was like a constant circling of wolves. 

It was one thing to be a witch and another to be queer—but both at the same time?  _Forget it_.

Joey balanced precariously against the wall of a turret, looking down for the beginning of the trellis that would be his ladder, when Zach couldn’t stop himself. 

“Joey—don’t go.”

At that Joey  _did_  stop, and looked back with mild surprise. Zach knew he rarely sounded that desperate. In most things he was the calm and logical one, while Joey would fly off the handle and break shit in anger. 

But Zach would be alone. Didn’t Joey get that  _Zach would be alone_?

Joey climbed back to the window ledge, and Zach almost felt a moment of relief. But when Joey held out his hand it wasn’t to clasp his, but instead to draw his pocketknife across—a bright red slash on the palm, glistening as dry skin was stained in blood.

Zach gasped. “ _Joe_?”

“Give me your hand.”

“Fuck no.“

“ _Give me your hand_. Although I shouldn’t need to do this to prove it to you.”

“Prove what?”

Joey laughed. “Zach, we’re always going to be together.  _Always_. I might not be physically here, but we have a bond that makes that irrelevant. I’ll never forget you—and I’ll come back, I promise. I’ll always come back for you.”

Zach looked behind him for an old t-shirt. “Your hand is bleeding.”

“Give me yours, and you can bleed too.”

Zach inhaled sharply—the slice against skin would be temporary, maybe leave a scab he’d be picking for weeks. But it would also be acquiescence. Once they clasped hands and made the blood pact, Joey would certainly leave and be gone for good.

“ _Please_.”

Zach swallowed at the pleading in Joey’s voice. There was bile and panic that threatened to choke Zach, but he tried not to give in. Instead he grabbed the first t-shirt he saw and held out his right hand, hoping for courage. 

He hissed as the sting cut into skin and a sweaty palm aligned with his. 

“Zach, look at me.”

Zach raised his gaze, stunned by what he saw there—he couldn’t look away, not for anything in the world. The stinging was worse now, but Joey’s eyes held a ferocity he had never seen before; a steely determination that what he was about to say was the truest thing in the entire world. 

“Zach, I love you. And I will come back to you. We’re gonna live together someday, in some huge stuffy house like this one—like Mama and Auntie Marie—and nobody will ever be able to separate us, never ever.” Joey laughed softly. “I bet we even die on the same day, that’s how much we need each other.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Because if I don’t, then I’ll die suffocating here. And I don’t want to die, Zach—I want to see the world.”

Their hands were still clasped as they stared at each other, with Zach coming to the realization that Joey was definitely leaving. Nothing on Earth would make him stay, not even Zach himself. 

“I’ll miss you, Joe,” Zach said quietly. 

Joey leaned forward for one last hug, breaking their hands to grasp tightly with a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back sooner than you think.”

“You better.”

“I’ll write you all the time—you’ll get sick to death of hearing from me!”

The last was a loud whisper as Zach saw Joey find his footing on the trellis. Then with one remaining look, Joey nodded his goodbye and squirreled down the side of the turret. 

“Be careful,” Zach whispered in reply. Perhaps too late, as he heard an  _oomph_  a moment later, and saw Joey run far away across the moonlit lawn. 

***

There were certainly days where Zach wished he had joined Joey. High school had been worse than hell. Once Joey ran away, it gave the jocks some  _ideas_  to make Zach cower and follow in his footsteps—from being shoved inside his locker, to taking refreshing baths head-first in a toilet stall. 

It would’ve been unbearable, except Zach knew some pretty nasty spells.  _Fuck_  karma—despite it being several years in the past, Zach still didn’t regret magicking Gary Baldwin’s mouth shut, or giving Dominic Busey a hideous rash. 

Because unlike Joey, Zach never gave anyone outward satisfaction that they had bothered him—he’d just quietly get even. He had never raised his fists in high school, he’d just beat their asses in all the ways that mattered. Graduating in the top ten of his class, high on every academic list, and getting into the schools he wanted. 

 _Dear Z – Heard you gave Baldwin a headache with your SAT score. Don’t you know those were probably his remaining brain cells? Shame on you – Love, Joey_

And once Zach went to college, he never had to deal with those morons again. There had been  _new_  morons, sure. But his real problems had been buying books and negotiating sleep, which had been incredibly preferable, any day.

 _Dear Z – All work and no play makes Zach a dull boy. Isn’t getting drunk part of the curriculum? I give you a big fat F, pal! Guess I’ll have to do the honors for you – but feel free to join me, although I know you won’t. Proud of you, Baby Bro – Love, Joey_

“What have you got, Zach?” 

He felt Auntie Marie’s eyes over his shoulder, glancing at his note. It was an old one from his freshman year at Penn State. He’d had a rough time at first, floating between the fine arts and science programs, and Joey had known it. He had sent letters practically every day, even if they were only a small slip of paper. 

“That’s old. Hasn’t he cared enough to write lately?” Auntie Marie shook her head. “Your mama won’t be around forever, he should try to remember us.” 

Zach watched as Auntie Marie wrinkled her nose at some milk in the fridge, then put the kettle on. As the steam rose from the teapot, Zach dropped his letter in the dusty packing box and confessed to himself that no—no, he hadn’t heard from Joey, at all. Not since college graduation, which had been two months ago. It had made him nostalgic for the little love notes, although in high school Joey had gone weeks without even a phone call. 

“I haven’t,” Zach answered truthfully, then got up from his seat. He was pre-empting what he usually heard next, wanting to leave the room before the comparisons started: That Joey was a dropout living on the streets of New York City, while Zach at least had gone and gotten himself a degree in Horticulture. Respectable Zach, Wild Child Joey – one good apple in the barrel, next to the rotten. 

But instead, “You think he’s okay?”

Zach looked up, startled—why wouldn’t he be? Auntie Marie rarely asked that question, although she sometimes  _knew_  these things; had an uncanny instinct like most witches. But yet, Joey was also made of a certain type of  _stuff_ —“Slippery as an eel, lucky as a fucking duck,” and Zach agreed. 

There was a part of Zach that felt he would know if Joey were injured, or dead, or—well,  _anything_. That Joey would never go back on his promise.

Zach looked up at Auntie Marie, who was muttering at some potted basil and parsley in the windowsill. She didn’t appear to be all that worried about Joey, either. 

“Yeah, I think so.” Zach was sure he’d hear from him soon—Joey was probably just busy, nothing to it.

“Think about what, hon?”

Zach didn’t even look at Mama as he left the room before the likely inquisition. He took his box of letters to his bedroom, where he moped alone for a while. 

***

 _Dear Z – Sorry I haven’t written lately. I’ve been taking photos near Greenwich, exploring a visual history of the hippies there and the rise of the beat poets. It’s so weird how much of it still remains, and how you can still tread the same streets, eat in the same cafés – well, if you’ve got the money, that is. (And that ain’t me, of course.)_

 _I’ve been couch-surfing mostly. Sometimes I stay out in the country with a tent and a backpack, which works for me too. I know it ain’t your kind of living, but sometimes laying close to the cold Earth is the closest I can get to a heartbeat, and it’s soothing. Different than the thrumming of the wild, manic city - a different type of thriving danger._

 _But the heart of the city is just like mine, Zach. I wish I knew how to explain it - a hummingbird trapped in a birdcage, thrashing against the bars. Waves crashing over rocks and plummeting in a waterfall. I don’t know, both aren’t close enough - I’m about to fall apart, and yet get thrown back together._

 _His name is Karl Urban, but everybody calls him the Devil._

 _I saw him first at a squatting in the country. There was a party at this old barn left to die in the wilderness, ready to collapse on top of our heads at any moment. The rafters so dusty, the candles about to set the whole place on fire from the creaking and fragility. I went outside to take a photoset in the nighttime, with the wooden skeleton lit from within like Hell was here itself._

 _And maybe it was, for when the camera went to my eyelid I felt the faintest breath on my ear – “Hello.”_

 _And the Devil walked right past me and into my shot. All long legs in denim and leather boots, his back broad and blocked out in shadow against fire. I saw his profile, as if he waited a moment, then dismissed me in the same breath. But my eyes followed - fuck, my body followed. Straight past the barn and into the woods._

 _Maybe he is the Devil – but I’m no angel._

 _Zach, you know me. Since being out here, I’ve slept with all sorts of people. Men, women – men dressed as women, and those who don’t care and have no idea. I don’t know where Karl stands, but when he shoved me against the tree and the dead thicket scratched and bit my thighs – it didn’t fucking matter. The world oozed and faded and exploded around me, and all the minute particles of the Earth were suddenly very beautiful – the smell of bark and the ensuing bonfire the holiest incense of them all._

 _When he whipped me around and I saw his hazel eyes – I was done for. He seared me with his mouth, and I’ve been bound to him ever since. Hand in hand, he led me out of the woods and into a new world._

 _And Gods... he has the most amazing accent. I thought he was Australian, but he’s from New Zealand. NEW ZEALAND – can you imagine? I felt daring traversing states, and he’s crossed an ocean. _

 _He’s so strong and warm and – I wish you could meet him Zach. When I’m not couch surfing or camping, we’re sleeping in Central Park and on the subway – looking for a moment to ourselves, to be ourselves. _

 _Karl is an actor. He’s going to be big someday. He’s already been in three plays out here – when he has another, maybe you can come?_

 _Love you, miss you – Joey_

***

Zach knew there was not much to be done about Joey. Regardless of how he felt about Karl, it didn’t truly matter. It’s not like he could’ve gone up to Greenwich and hunted Joey down—dragged him back to Pittsburgh, tame him for some normalcy. Joey was never that sort of person; a true water sign that flowed wherever the currents took him, unimpeded by whatever stood in his path. 

Zach read the sporadic letters voraciously. Some made his cheeks burn, but most filled him with consternation—he would never understand Joey’s perverse fascination with knives and handcuffs, ever. 

“Zach, you keep frowning like that and you’ll get wrinkles.”

Zach looked up at Auntie Marie—still frowning—then stuffed the latest letter in his messenger bag.

“Are we going or not?” he said irritably, trying to hide his face by going out the back door first. 

“My, we’re in a rush,” Auntie Marie answered, most likely with a smirk that  _no_ , Zach would not turn around and further frown at. 

He was at the mailbox before he realized he had stomped ahead, narrowly missing Siouxsie Sioux who was hissing at him from under a hydrangea bush. She hissed at everybody of course, but today Zach hissed back in annoyance. She gave him the stink eye as Mama and Auntie Marie locked the back door and headed towards him, not giving any notice of his foul mood. 

“Ready, honey?” Mama said as she patted his shoulder, then walked past him.

Zach nodded, then trailed behind as they all ambled into town for the farmer’s market. It was something they did every Thursday morning during the warm months, the ritual not changing much year after year. Zach usually went, or otherwise suffered the consequences of hearing about all the supposedly raucous fun Mama and Auntie Marie had while he slept in.

Which, yeah—he  _still_  lived with them. Slept under the same slanted roof of his childhood. It seemed like he’d never find a job, no matter how many spells he cast to give him an edge—so much for college. 

And yet Joey was the rebel, dabbling in all sorts of new experiences and places and things—with some really great sex on the side, to boot. Living it up in NYC, while Zach stayed in Pittsburgh and was practically a stay-at-home housewife, since he had nothing better to do. 

He was twenty-two and still a fucking virgin. Where was the vein of life for Zach to tap into, for a change?

“Ooh, strawberries are finally in season!” Mama grabbed Auntie Marie’s arm and dragged her to the farmstand. “They are so red!” 

Zach looked up absently, then huffed as Auntie Marie blocked his view. He turned his head and glanced at the flowers of another booth—roses, lilacs, violets in bright bursts of color—then looked back to see that Auntie Marie had stepped aside. 

And there he was. 

It was a clear opening beyond the farmer’s stand that made Zach stop dead, and finally see him.  _Finally_  was an odd word—yet Zach felt all of time narrow to a pinpoint as the air constricted around him. 

The man was laughing. He was out in the open, hit with sunlight, his teeth bright as he threw his head back and yelled in amusement behind him. Dark, curly-hair framed a tan face as he tipped a stock cart on its wheels, waving goodbye to a seller as he moved forward—moved towards Zach. 

So this was what it felt like, for Zach to finally feel the rush of blood to his face and the Earth shifting beneath his feet. For his heart to quicken as the man came closer—closer—bronzed skin and brown eyes alive with mirth as Zach couldn’t breathe, could barely stay inside his skin.

For the cart to almost run him over. 

The man quickly swerved, then looked up in surprise—where they locked eyes, and Zach finally felt what it meant to say the world stopped and turned around them, the air electric as skin tingled in proximity to desire. 

The dark-haired man smiled as he slowed his cart, watching as Zach watched, and they both turned their heads to keep staring at the other. 

It was a long moment as Zach melted at the sight of a dimple, and heard a strange accent breathlessly say, “ _Hi_.”

Brain cells fizzed, or popped, or any number of things, for Zach’s mouth could barely form the syllables to politely say “Hi” back.

“Zach?”

The moment shattered, leaving Zach to blink and whip his head back at Auntie Marie, who was watching curiously and tugging the sleeve of Mama.

The letdown was frustrating, and Zach felt flustered as he bit back a harsh  _what_  and wanted to curse out loud. They were just standing there gawking, and they had interrupted something that might not ever happen again—

A crash resounded behind him, and Zach spun around to see a commotion by a van—where the dark-haired man was clutching his nose, waving off shoppers as he picked up his fallen cart next to the stalled vehicle. 

He looked around and met Zach’s eyes, then ducked his head sheepishly when he realized that Zach had been watching him. 

It was adorable, the way the man’s face went red as Zach bit back a laugh, all frustration dissipating.

Zach grinned, giving a small wave as he called out, “Be careful now!”, then turned to coolly walk away.

He didn’t see the man’s reaction. Instead Zach was still smiling to himself as he walked past Mama and Auntie Marie; barely registering their exchange of conspiratorial looks as he perused roses, lilacs, and violets.

***

Zach was pretty sure that five minutes ago he had been gardening—clearing mulch from around the rose bushes, while Mama and Auntie Marie had sat on the porch. 

Except when the town clock had struck six, intoning with bells across his neighborhood, his arms and legs had pushed him off the ground and started moving him without his permission. 

“Zach?” Mama had called out as he rushed across the front lawn. “Honey?”

“Going somewhere?” Auntie Marie had asked too sweetly—but by then he was down the driveway, turning sharply at the street as his legs stretched out and he started _running_.

He raced fast past his neighbors, the stop signs, kids on bikes. He ran with a nip at his heels like his body was on fire, consumed with the desire to get  _somewhere_ , see _someone_ ; urgency and adrenaline pounding in his veins for no real reason he could discern. 

Except when Zach reached the top of the road into town he finally saw what it was. The head of dark curly hair turned towards him, also out of breath, but with an assured grin on his face.

Zach grinned too, his destination clear.  _X_  marking the spot, marking his destiny—marking something and someone he truly wanted. 

Within ten feet of each other they ran and smashed together, grabbing desperately as their mouths met and their arms refused to let go. Thoughts flew from Zach's head as warmth overwhelmed him, the kiss so sweet and perfect and all-encompassing; hitting the spot of an empty need he didn’t know existed. 

A thumb skimmed his chin, angling them both away but still very close. Brown eyes welcomed Zach’s, just as that glorious accent once again said, “Hi.”

Zach would’ve said  _Hi_  back, except a car horn burst their moment. The man laughed it off, waving at the driver, before taking Zach’s hand in his and pulling him along. It wasn’t even a question—Zach had no questions. 

When they got off the road, there was no doubt in Zach’s mind that they were off to start something unbelievably wonderful together. 

***

 _Dear Joey – I miss you, and hope you’re doing okay in the city. I know you were just here for the ceremony, but it still feels like forever and never enough._

 _Although life with Eric is just… perfect. Stupidly perfect. I never thought that people actually got to live the life they wanted, unexpected and undeserved, and yet here I am. A perfect life with the perfect husband – the most wonderful man I’ve ever met._

 _You know what he did today? I swear he is such a kid sometimes – we ate pop tarts under a tent of bedsheets, naked and drowsy from a sleepless night before. We played twenty questions and silly car games, and shadow puppets when the flashlights had to be pulled out. And – yeah, I’ll admit it – we made love and talked and spent the whole day under those bedsheets, with not a care in the world and the responsibilities of real life._

 _It never occurred to me before, to stay in bed all day. Yet Eric convinces me to stay there – convinces me to do a lot of things I’ve never done before._

 _Gods, Joey. How is this my life? How am I so happy? A year ago I never imagined a way to move away from Mama and Auntie Marie. Yet here I am in this tiny cottage down the street with this perfect, Hallmark life. This isn’t supposed to happen to people like us. We’re supposed to be flamboyant and promiscuous and unhappy working-class stiffs like everybody else, dreading living and dying and going through the motions._

 _But fuck, Joe – I’m so happy. And Eric actually brings me pretty flowers, and makes breakfast in the mornings, and leaves little notes all over the place. Found one this morning taped to the newspaper’s op-ed section: “I love you, even though you read these. ;) “_

 _Once I get a real job, we’ve been talking about kids. Me, a gay guy – with kids? But I would love to have children with him, and make you Uncle Joey. Mama would finally stop threatening to adopt her own grandkids._

 _Love you, miss you. Tell us when Karl has his stage dates and we’ll make a road trip of it some weekend – Zach_

***

 _Dear Z – How are things? You were just here yesterday, but fuck if I don’t miss you already. Are you sure you like Pittsburgh that much? There’s an apartment that just opened across from us, I’m just saying._

 _Anyway – I’m sorry that Karl was a jerk this weekend. He’s just been really tired lately. He has double-showings on Saturdays and Sundays, and he’s near the end of his run. He really thought you and Eric were great, and hopes you can make it to NY again some time soon - maybe with those babies the both of you were talking about. (Really, Karl doesn't think it's a stupid idea. He just has a kid across the ocean that he can never see, and it reminds him and makes him an ass.)_

 _I just miss you both. It was really nice to have you here and see you again._

 _The potted wandering jew we bought is doing well by the window. He gets a lot of sun, and his purple vines are entwining with the curtain rod already. Karl, of course, doesn't like that we named him Moses - but then he doesn't seem to like anything I do, nowadays. If you thought our Lammas ritual in Central Park riled him up, the esbats drive him nuts. I've gone down to only observing the Full Moon, sometimes switching with the New if I can't get Karl out of the apartment. He doesn’t go to church, but damn if he doesn’t preach sometimes like we’re in one. _

 _At least the sex is still crazy and often – wild, possessive, never-ending. Sometimes I’ll slip him something to knock him out when I need time to myself – which, fuck, who needs to do that?? – but otherwise he won’t leave me alone._

 _I'm sorry you had to hear us. You and Eric should've gotten revenge and put us both to shame – hell, just watching the two of you makes me jealous. How did you train him to read your mind, like that? You practically mirror each other, and I can tell he is so good to you and it makes me glad._

 _When are the babies coming? I know you've talked to somebody in Russia, and that this can take years. But after seeing the both of you, I know you guys will be amazing parents. I can't wait to meet little Anton - are you still thinking of adopting a girl at the same time, too?_

 _Love to both of you. Tell Eric again that Karl is sorry – Joey_

***

 _Dear Joey - Oh Gods, oh gods. I am so tired. So tired. I cannot believe a human being can function on how little sleep I've gotten in the last two weeks. But then, every time I look at Anton's curls and his tiny finger wraps around mine, my heart bursts and sleep is the furthest thing from my mind. _

 _Zoe and Eric are taking to each other like two peas in a pod. He was so right about her - he wanted to adopt from the Dominican Republic when I was so hesitant. We had an agency we trusted in Russia, and yet Eric went with his gut, and it wound up being the right thing. She fits in so well with the three of us. The moment we picked her up at the airport, she felt right in my arms - and the sight of her and Eric is enough to convince anyone. He hefted her four-year-old self on his back, her giggling infectious and unexpected, and walked right out with her. Nobody stopped him, and I doubt anybody could._

 _She was shy with me for a while, but with Eric - it's like they've known each other forever._

 _And Gods, you should see how she is with the baby. Love at first sight. When we got home from the airport and met Mama with Anton, it was like all the pieces fit together in Zoe's eyes. She raced up to his bassinette and couldn't get enough of him - touching him, talking to him, singing. She loves to sing him songs in Spanish, of which Eric and I wished we understood. I know there is one about a cat, which I guessed because the only Spanish words I know are “hola” and “gato”. (Well, and “una cerveza, por favor” - but I left that behind in college.)_

 _I wish you could see them, Joey - they remind me so much of us. And with being so proud of them, it makes me intensely realize how much Mama and Pop must have loved you and me. Not that I ever doubted, but there are few people I'd ever take a bullet for, and my children would not take a moment's hesitation._

 _Please come see us. Mama and Auntie Marie spoil them rotten, but the person we always talk about is Uncle Joey. Although sometimes I swear when Anton smiles and giggles – he reminds me exactly of you. And when he does, it’s like there’s a little piece of you here._

 _Joey - you know the offer still stands. Any day, any time. Collect call us if you have to. If not me or Eric, then Mama and Auntie Marie can always come and get you._

 _We had such a difficult childhood in many ways - I just wish you could see us here. I don't know what I ever did to be so blessed, but I will no longer doubt nor fear it._

 _I love you, Joe. We all do. Please, take care of yourself - Zach_

***

 _Dear Z – I'm in Manhattan right now, looking out the tallest skyscraper. Why do people build things so tall? Why must mankind always build things up, if one day they are just destined to fall?_

 _I am doing a series of perspective shots from high above. Everything seems so much simpler up here, with the world looking so tiny down below. I always wondered if I threw a penny off, if it would truly kill someone. We’re like the Gods of Mount Olympus up here, deciding what things to throw humanity as a bone._

 _And yet, the real things aren’t simple. My perspective shots are from people looking down, their silhouette in the shot. Unexpected, I don’t ask at first – spontaneous and hopeful, banking on my ability to make them see the theme and worthiness of the project._

 _Some of my beautiful shots will be just for me, alone._

 _Sitting on a bench up here, it feels like that describes so many things. I wanted to start off this letter by saying “You don’t understand” – but then I scratched it out, wrote it again, then crumpled the paper. Inspiration leaving me, my ability to make people see things leaving me. _

 _But Zach - you just don’t understand. It’s all I can give you._

 _I’m not entirely dumb. I know it all looks bad, sounds bad, seems bad. I know he was an asshole when you came to New York, and I cringed every time he shot Eric’s attempt at friendliness down. I know what that seems to mean. _

 _But you just don’t understand._

 _Z, I wish I could open my chest and show my heart to you – the blood vessels, the muscles, the veins. I think it must look different now, since that night I saw him in the country, when the Devil led me to temptation behind the barn. Love hasn’t felt the same since. I can’t imagine sex with anyone else. Before, when I would fall into the open crowd – vulnerable, exposed, hoping someone would love me – now I am carried and held closely, strong arms pinning me to the spot._

 _No one has ever wanted to possess me before. And I guess no one has bothered trying, since._

 _I’m nearly three years older than you, and feeling way too close to thirty. Yet there was a part of me I never got – never understood until I saw you up here, with Eric._

 _He doesn’t possess you, does he? And strangely enough, it doesn’t look like you want to possess back._

 _But it makes me feel safe – I never felt safe until I met Karl. Maybe it makes me less human to want these things, but before I met him I was raw to the world – aimless, uncertain, without a plan. I carried my life in my knapsack: a couple pairs of clothes, all your letters, some pictures of friends._

 _But Karl ripped me open – broke me, shook me, tore me to shreds - and then he put me back together. He was not afraid of all the dirty bits inside of me, not afraid to touch this broken child that I was and still am._

 _You don’t understand, Zach – and I can’t even explain it. But please, don’t ask me to leave again. I don’t want to get your hopes up, and I don’t want to let everyone down._

 _Z – tell Eric I adore him. Maybe more so, because he can’t get under my skin like you do. Like your words on paper, haunting me all the way up to the top of this skyscraper, not letting me rest until I get the right words. Explaining myself, trying to make you understand._

 _Because you always understood me when we were kids, Z – and it scares me that you don’t now._

 _There is a young girl looking over the ledge, her blonde hair framing her angelic face. If Anton reminds you of me, this girl is your doppelgänger. Not excited like other children I’ve seen, but calm and stoic. Analyzing the scenery down below as it passes, not giving an ounce of emotion behind her expression._

 _You let the world flow into a sea around you, your viewpoint the paddle for the tide. Whereas I was the swimmer, fighting up stream – determined to get beaten by the currents crashing the rocks, drowning and losing strength at the edge of the waterfall._

 _I never claimed to be the brightest. But I’ve been out here twelve years now, five of them with the Devil. It might be the only way I know how to live._

 _I love you, Zach. Tell Anton and Little Z that I love them too – Joey_

***

The beetle tapped against the floorboards in the late morning hours. It stirred Zach’s consciousness with the first sound, and roused him from sleep with the second. At the third, Zach’s eyes were wide open in the dark. 

Anton lay against his side, the toddler like a hot water bottle in his flannel onesie and fleece blanket. He had crawled there hours before, following Zoe who hated sleeping alone. She had a habit of sneaking in, under blankets, becoming a second skin to Eric’s side. 

They had talked about that, but in the end the six-year-old’s sense of security meant more. Anton had joined in because his older sister was doing it—they were picking up that pattern more and more. 

It usually wasn’t a bother, truth be told, as the bed was large enough to hold all of them. But now with Zach’s mind caught up with the sounds of the beetle, he had to fight every muscle in his body not to leap up and disturb everyone. 

After all, surely their animals Noah and Harold would hear it—catch it, destroy it, eat it. Ruin the announcer of bad tidings, the harbinger of death. The same one his mother had heard the night before his father had died. 

Zach looked over at the three warm bodies next to him—Anton, Zoe, Eric. Their faces blissful and unaware.  _Peaceful_. Eric’s arm was likely numb from Zoe’s head resting on it, although his fingertips whispered Zach’s shoulder. Anton spooned around his sister’s back, although her limbs were at odd angles and tended to kick whenever. 

It was the most beautiful moment Zach had ever seen. A part of his mind was framing it, memorizing it—keeping it with him forever. The world suddenly had a strange glow, his heart beating fast. 

It was reacting to the deathwatch beetle, as his nerves called on the paranoia of childhood.

Things only had power when they had  _belief_. Zach would not give it belief, would not stay up listening to it in the dark. 

Except when Eric’s alarm went off at five a.m. Zach leapt out of bed, his eyes hunting the wooden floorboards. 

“Babe?”

Zach was setting Anton down in a playpen in the living room as his eyes continued to scour—damn beetle, damn foreboding silence. 

“Hon?”

Zach looked up at Eric in the doorway, his stock uniform of blue and gray looking dingy in the morning dawn. Yet his eyes shone amber, his face bronzed like that morning Zach first saw him—his dark head of curls framing his beautiful face. 

Zach looked anxiously at the baseboards and rugs as he walked forward, only meeting Eric’s gaze when they were about to kiss goodbye. 

It was soft, too fleeting. 

“Love you, I’ll be home before five. Call me if you need anything—” Eric leaned against the screendoor and wickedly grinned, “And I do mean  _anything_.”

Normally Zach would wink or flirt back, but this time his mind was elsewhere, missing the joke.

Eric sighed, then called out to the living room. “’Bye guys, Papa loves you—see you later.”

And there was a moment’s impulse when Zach wanted to reach forward and grab him, pull him close—tell him something important, something itching the back of his mind. Kiss him again, close the front door. Keep him home, safe in bed, skin-to-skin without the demands of the outside world. 

But as the screendoor closed on Zach’s fingers the baby cried, Anton standing upright in his playpen, throwing his bottle to the ground. 

“Dad, where are my purple socks?”

And Zach fought the great urge to run in front of Eric’s truck, stop him dead in his tracks. Instead he closed the front door, turning around to tell Zoe for the tenth time that her socks were still in the dryer and would be out soon. 

***

The more the hours pressed on, the more the beetle maddened him. Zoe left for school at eight o’clock, and from there it was a downward spiral. 

Anton watched TV from his playpen while Zach grabbed the hammer. 

“Where are you—where are you? No, no, no,” Zach pulled each up floorboard, one by one. “You’re here, I can hear you now. Where are you— “

His heart quickened the louder the tapping got, until Zach was sure he could smash it by hitting randomly around him, the beetle looming close. 

“Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_ ,” the trail of loose floorboards ran straight to their bedroom. “I’ve got you, you’re close—“

And then time stood still, the world halting in its orbit. His heart had stopped beating, his breath caught—the sensation of something most important to him being savagely ripped from his soul. 

The deathwatch beetle stopped tapping when the doorbell rang.

***

BEEP.  _“Oh Gods Zach, I just heard. I’m coming—I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll take the train, I’ll hitch-hike, I’ll run, I’ll crawl if I have to—but I’ll be there soon, I promise. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Oh Zach, I’m so sorry. I love you and I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve this. But I’ll be there soon to take care of you. Please hold tight. I love you, all of you. I’ll be there soon—"_  BEEP. 

***

Zach rammed into the door, charging like a hurricane through Auntie Marie’s kitchen. 

“Do it, both of you—bring him back.”

“Zach?” Auntie Marie called out from the living room, following as Zach went into their spell parlor, digging into drawers and ripping open cabinets. “What are you talking about? 

“You know how—“ Zach lugged a heavy leather-bound book onto a wooden table. “Bring Eric back.”

It was perhaps the first time Auntie Marie was ever speechless, standing in the doorway as Zach cracked open the binding, flipping through the grimoire obsessively.

“You can’t do that.”

“Where is it?” Zach almost tore the dusty and fragile pages with panic. “I saw it once, it’s in here.”

Auntie Marie shook her head, retreating towards the staircase to yell, “ _Margo!_ ” 

“It had all these ingredients, I almost copied it down once—“

“Zach,” Mama said as she hurried into the kitchen. “What are you doing?” 

“This one, the resurrection spell.” Zach turned towards the cabinets, gathering ingredients. “We need birch and hawthorn. We didn’t run out, did we?”

Mama leaned against the doorframe of the parlor, clutching her chest. “ _Zach_ , you can’t bring Eric back.”

He emptied a drawer of herbs onto the table, rifling through them. “Yes I can, and I will—“

“ _Zach_.” Mama grabbed his arm, but he shrugged it off. “Listen to me—I know how this feels. But he’d just be a shell, a poppet—“

“ _I don’t care_. You don’t understand—I  _need_  him. My  _children_  need him, shell or not.”

“You don’t have a choice, he’s gone now—“

“Don’t say that.”

Mama grabbed his shoulders. “But it’s true. There’s nothing you can do to bring him back—“

“How the  _fuck_  am I supposed to do this, huh?” Zach wheeled on her, his face tight. "How am I supposed to raise two children on my own? How am I supposed to live without my other half, my soulmate, the person who was always supposed to be there? How am I supposed to spend the rest of my life—” 

Zach stopped short, awareness dawning as he looked into the eyes of Mama, who knew all too well. He put his face in his hands, trying not to crumble, just as Mama stepped forward to comfort him. 

But there was a snort behind them. “ _Gods_ , Zach. You used to be made of tougher stuff.”

He glanced up at Auntie Marie, his face unreadable as Mama gawked.

“ _Marie_ —“

“You have two children, you can’t break like this.” Auntie Marie’s eyes were sharp as diamonds. “Your Mama certainly never wallowed like this, demanding that somebody  _fix_ things. She accepted the truth. And the truth is Zach, Eric is as cold as stone in the city morgue—“

“Shut up.”

“You can never bring him back, and you have to man up and move on with your life.”

“Shut  _up_.”

“If only we had known.” Auntie Marie scoffed, shaking her head. “Then we never would have done it.”

Mama turned Zach’s shoulders, hissing, “ _Enough_. Enough with this. Zach just lost his husband, and he has the right to mourn without your callousness—“

“Done what?” Zach interrupted quietly, dangerously low.

Both sisters turned towards him, Mama surprised at the jump in logic, while Auntie Marie only raised an eyebrow. 

Mama rushed it out, “Nothing, honey. Your Auntie Marie was just saying—“

But Zach looked straight at Auntie Marie, locking her gaze. “What do you mean?” It was a rumble from his chest, his jaw clenching in anticipation. 

Mama glanced at Auntie Marie nervously, but her sister only shrugged. “We thought we were only bringing about the inevitable—a gentle  _nudging_.“

Zach walked slowly towards them, and Mama and Auntie Marie backed up through the doorway and into the kitchen. 

“ _What_  do you mean?”

At that Auntie Marie actually looked nervous. “It was not supposed to make you desolate. We thought we would speed things along, bring you two together, since you were so shy and stunted—“

Zach took a shuddering breath, all his anger choking him when realization hit. “You did a love spell on us?  _Without our permission_?” 

The accusation hung heavy in the air, the crime of being violated clearly evident on Zach’s face. It was one thing to help, and another to manipulate a person’s future— to make a person feel things they might not have felt—

“Zach, it’s not like we  _knew_  he would die. We thought a spell would just bring about the intended—“

Mama spun around, her apologetic smile sheepish as she put a hand on his chest. “You were so lonely, honey. Eric was the first boy we’d ever seen you take an interest in—we were only trying to help. We never considered that something might happen—”

Zach stilled, his stony gaze looking from one set of frantic eyes to another. He swallowed the rising bile in his throat, his hands gently lowering and pushing away Mama as he turned his head. 

“Zach?”

He walked back to the leather grimoire, still splayed on the wooden table and surrounded by herbs. He lifted a yellowed page with a fingertip, his eyes scanning the resurrection spell that had survived many centuries. 

“Honey?”

The ancient book had been passed down from generation to generation, carefully tended to and revered. All of their family history was in these pages, written in scrawling script. A family tree was on the inside cover, listing birth dates and wedding dates and death dates—

“Zach, we’re so sorry—“

With more strength than Zach thought he possessed, he grabbed and hefted the heavy book over one shoulder—and slung it with rage through the parlor windows. 

“ _Zach!_ ”

There was more calling from his mother, but glass was in his face—his hands, his arms, embedded in his fingertips. Embedded in every crevice that he could no longer feel. 

The world was painted in slow-motion. He looked down at his palm, the familiar scar from long ago the only recognizable thing. His thumb rubbed over a shard of glass at the lifeline, ignoring the stains of blood on his skin; he was too lost and mesmerized by a sudden numbness.

Zach felt a hand on his shoulder, and soon he was staring into the concerned face of Mama. She was kneeling before him—when had he fallen to his knees?—and a hand reached up to cup a cheek. 

She said nothing, but Zach felt his voice bubbling up. 

“I loved him, Mama.” 

“I know, honey,” she said with a whisper, her eyes welling with tears. “Believe me, I never would have wished this for you.” 

His breath caught as it stuttered out. His chest felt sore as he tried to cry, but his tears were all wrung out from the hours before, cradling his children. 

Zach felt a tentative hand rub circles into his back, and he closed his eyes as his head lolled forward, his forehead resting in the crook of Mama’s neck. Arms encircled his waist as another head rested between shoulder blades, Auntie Marie’s hands slow and comforting on his biceps. 

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Zach whispered, knowing that the grimoire now had grass and dew and insects all along the aged edges. 

“No,  _we’re_  sorry, Zach,” she whispered back, kissing the top of his head. “All the sorries in the world. We’d give up anything for you.” 

When the clock in the kitchen struck six, then seven—they were all still kneeling in the parlor, with Zach unable to let either of them go. 

***

A month later when Zach moved back into Auntie Marie’s, the repairman for the window had come and gone. As his small family brought in the last of their boxes—with Noah trotting in happily behind Zoe and her Dora backpack—Zach’s only rule was stated plainly, in front of Anton and his ever-watchful elders. 

“ _No magick_ ,” he hissed, staring Auntie Marie and Mama straight in the eye as he walked past them, hefting Anton in his arms. 

Zach loved them both. But some things he would never forgive, nor forget.

 

***

“Dad!  _Dad_ —“

Zach pulled the covers over his head and groaned. “Indoor voice, please.”

He felt hands poking him through the blanket. “Dad, why are you still in bed?” He felt another poke. “Daddy, get  _up_.” Poke, poke. “Dad?” 

Zach sighed and mentally prepared for the barrage of sunlight as he pulled down the covers. 

“Because, babe—“ he blinked a few times to see Zoe’s questioning face staring down at him. “I’m just tired.”

“It’s noon! Auntie Marie says it’s lunchtime.”

“Then you should go eat.” He reached again for the covers and found a set of hands blocking him. 

“She says she’s holing my sandwich sausage ‘til you come down,” Zoe stated with too much seriousness. 

Zach rubbed his face, knowing instantly he was going to lose this one. “Tell her you’re a vegetarian.”

Zoe pinned him with a look. “ _No_.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “No?”

“We made a special soup for you.” She grabbed at his arm and tugged hard. “You have to come try it.” 

“What sort of soup?”

“Get well soup.” 

“What’s in this soup?” Zach’s arm bounced up and down like a zombie as he made no effort to help at all, and he quirked a lip. “It’s not stone soup again, is it?”

But Zoe kept tugging, letting a whine seep into her voice. “Please, Daddy? You’ve been sick for  _months_. You need soup.”

That sobered him up pretty quickly, and he thickly swallowed. “Okay—okay, Zo.”

It was more difficult than it should have been, willing himself to put feet to the floor. But Zoe climbed onto the bed and moved around him, pushing with all her weight against his back.

It knocked the wind out of him with an  _oof_. “I’m going, babe!” She kept pushing and he chuckled. “Zoe—“ 

She shoved again, and Zach reached around to grab her hands. “I’m good— _I promise_. I’ll get up.” 

Zach managed to pull her to the side, where Zoe sat on her knees on the bed. Her brown eyes anxiously watched his—tense and obsessive, waiting for him to make the slightest move. 

It was disconcerting, and Zach leaned forward for a quick kiss to her forehead. “What’s going on?” he asked quietly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Zoe was his worrywart—constantly fretting that the sky was falling, paranoid about everything. Three months ago, Eric could’ve given her a bright smile and wiped it all away—said the right words, known the perfect solutions to her intricate six-year-old anxieties. His mere presence would frighten ghosts away, his deep voice would make monsters run for the hills— _and_  he knew the answers to every math problem, the words to all her favorite songs, the ways to make her happy again.

Zach swallowed a lump in his throat and tried a smile of his own. But Zoe only fell forward and gripped him, fingertips digging into his skin as she burrowed her face into his side.

“Don’t go away,” she said in a small voice, muffled against his t-shirt.

Zoe clung to him, and Zach whispered all the promises in the world—unsure if they would ever be true, but hoping that they could be. 

***

 _Dear Joey – Sorry it’s been a while. Things have been hectic around here lately, you know how it is._

 _We’re finally settled in, and the kids seem to be doing okay. Thankfully Zoe has the same school. Mama is thrilled to have us here, of course – and Auntie Marie is thrilled in her own, special way. Siouxsie Sioux less so. (Noah is finding that out quickly, although dimwittingly.)_

 _Anton has always latched onto Mama, but it’ll probably amuse you to know that Zoe and Auntie Marie are now thick as thieves. I don’t know exactly what they’re up to, but Zoe is growing a green thumb – she has her own line of herbs on the kitchen sill right next to Auntie Marie’s, and they are doing well. I guess that’s how I started, way back when. Mine were basil and thyme; hers are parsley, mint, and lavender. She sings to them, just like I used to._

 _Zoe is also in your old room. And since we’re adults and can be mature about this – care to finally tell me where all your secret cubbys are? I thought Mama always knew, but she isn’t dishing if she does. I swear I won’t steal your gum from ’86, I just – Zoe has a journal and a jewelry box that she used to hide under the bed, filled with photos and cards and things, and they’re missing now._

 _I guess she’s like you, in that way. You always hid your book of shadows, even from me. I had my journal out for the world to read, trusting too much that no one would look at it – never considering that Mama actually would._

 _I have my old room here, too. I’m back in the attic. Anton’s crib is near me, although he’s getting too big for one. It used to be my sanctuary up here – enough space for me to dream big, enough quiet to study or play my music really loud. Enough space to pace the floorboards – especially after that night you left, and I had to figure out what to tell Mama._

 _It’s just strange to view it with new eyes. Where I had space to pace before, now it’s crowded and filled with boxes. I didn’t want to put Eric’s trophies in the basement – did you know he was in a bowling league? Those awards are obnoxiously tall._

 _Anton walks around and touches everything, his terrible twos now in full force. I never realized how horrible this house was for kids until we came back – three flights of stairs, antiques everywhere, child hazards wherever I look. Mama has more patience for these things, and thank Gods, because I’m too exhausted to watch his every move. They finally fixed that lock on the back door – Anton is our new Houdini, and Noah and Harold take advantage whenever they can._

 _The neighbors smiled and welcomed me back. Funny how that was different when we were growing up. Just wait until Noah digs up their flowerbeds._

 _Love you. I hope things are okay where you are – Zach_

***

 _Dear Z – Have you ever seen a Rose of Jericho?_

 _You’re the family herbalist, although Auntie Marie taught both of us - lavender for a headache, mint for a sick stomach, belladonna for sleeplessness. Thyme for nightmares, dandelion for divination on the full moon. So maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t._

 _I was at a friend’s place last Saturday, and she handed me this thing that looked like a miniature sagebrush – some tumbleweed in the palm of my hand. I didn’t know what it was until she told me to water it. Told me to water it, watch it, and maybe try to learn something for a change._

 _I told her sure, I was out of subjects - but it’s not like I was bored enough to film mold. But she was having none of it, holding the keys to the place and the couch I was sleeping on. So she brought out a pie tin, filled it with water, and ordered me to just watch. _

 _Apparently the Rose of Jericho does come from the Middle East. That isn’t a divergent point, as I started observing the only way I knew how – a photo every 30 minutes._

 _Zach, I don’t know how it does it, I’m no genius. But the dead and brown tumbleweed suddenly flourished into green, and folded out with the quick passage of time. Before it was like a closed fist, keeping the heart of it shielded, like a flower before blossom. But once the roots touched water it was gone – long tendrils stretching out, reaching out, unfolding itself. _

 _I have a series of photos, one seemingly more beautiful than the next. I didn’t know what to do with them, except send them to you._

 _Zach, we both grew up so broken hearted. I know we dealt with this in different ways. You kept your head down and charged forward into the world – your plate of armor your wit and intelligence, the ability to strike down any foe with a stern look. You never let anybody in, and anyone that was lucky enough usually walked through fire first._

 _I don’t know if Eric walked through fire. But what I do know is that so many people love you, and would gladly fall into the flame to see you well again – count me as one of those._

 _If you don’t keep watering the Rose of Jericho it shrivels up again, turning into the same brown tumbleweed as before. Closing its heart, shedding its green. Miserable and dejected, perhaps – but I see each of those tendrils as a finger stretching out, looking to be dyed by the first drop of moisture, hungrily waiting. What once was green and turned to death can be woken again. Lay the photos side by side, and you can’t even tell where it begins or ends._

 _I love you, Zach. Please take care of yourself, and say hi to Anton and Little Z for me. And no, I’ll never tell you where the secret cubbys are – my lips are forever sealed – Joey_

***

“Zach.  _Zaaa-ach_.”

Zach squeezed his eyes tight, listening keenly to the voice. It was so familiar, yet one that was usually reserved for dreams. 

“Baby brother, come  _on_.”

Zach tried to remain sleeping, just for a little while longer—until he felt a painful  _thwack_  to the temple.

“Hey, wake the fuck up.”

At that his eyes  _did_  fly open—seeing Joey mere inches from his face, grinning wickedly against a floral pillowcase in the darkness.

Zach reached out quickly and squeezed an arm. “Joe?  _Joey_ —“

Joey put a finger to his lips, although they quirked up in amusement. “Indoor voice, please.” He looked to the side. “Anton’s asleep.” 

Zach bit his bottom lip to keep from giggling. “What are you doing here?”

Joey sighed dramatically. “Oh, I don’t know. I was just passing through the neighborhood, when I heard that my brother had been ill for the last six months. Thought I’d stop by.”

Zach let his hand drop, his mind fumbling with words to say but settling on a, “That’s nice of you.”

“Have to go back in the morning, but—“ Joey wrinkled his nose. “Have you showered lately?”

“How did you get out?” Zach said, self-conciously touching his hair. “New York’s far.”

“Nah, I slipped Karl something and drove his car—but really, laundry?  _Ever_?”

Zach swallowed. “It’s good to see you.”

Joey snorted. “Wish I could say the same. You look like shit.”

Zach made a face. “Screw you.”

“Ever hear of sunlight? Does wonders. Same with fresh air.” 

Zach sighed and rolled onto his back. “I think I know where this is going.”

But there was only silence in the minutes afterwards, as Zach’s eyes traced the slanted ceiling of his attic bedroom. He waited and waited—until he turned his head to see Joey watching him. 

Joey opened his mouth, closed it, then, “Do you remember how Mama was after Pop died?”

Zach nodded. She had gotten up and taken care of them, but she had been a recluse in the house for months. A school conference had been a big outing, pajamas the uniform for every day. 

“You’re going to say I’m like Mama.”

Joey shook his head. “No, I was going to say you’re  _worse_  than Mama.”

“You don’t understand, Joe.”

“And you don’t understand what I’m getting at.”

Sheets rustled as Joey snuck under them and curled up to Zach’s side. “You want to hear a story?”

“No.”

“So when we first moved in here—right after Pop died—I was absolutely convinced my bedroom was haunted.”

Zach huffed a breath. “Yep. We had to sprinkle salt around the edges of the room and everything to get you to go to sleep.” 

Joey touched Zach’s arm, his body leaning more into view. “It never worked though, remember? I think by the third week Mama was convinced it was all in my head, and you avoided my room entirely.”

“I hate ghosts.”

“I know.” 

Joey glanced over at Anton’s crib for a moment, then looked back at Zach. “Anyway, that’s when Auntie Marie figured it out.”

Zach narrowed his brows. He hadn’t heard this part of the story before. 

“One night she came in and slept with me—you used to have nightmares, so Mama must have been busy with you. So we laid in this little twin bed, both of us squished together, while I waited for her to finally see the ghost I was talking about.”

There was a pause, and Zach turned his head to watch him—more confused by the serene look on Joey’s face. 

“And then it appeared, right before us.”

Zach frowned. “She never told us this.” 

“Because after that it never happened again.”

“Did you tell it to go away?”

Joey shook his head. “No. It was—it was nothing like that.” He leaned closer, his breath a whisper in his ear. “I thought it was  _Pop_.”

Zach had never heard this either. 

“I kept seeing him, this figure pressed against my chest. His face inches from mine, whispering words I couldn’t hear.”

“Gods, Joey— _fuck_.”

“And I was pointing and crying, and I practically hit Auntie Marie in the face—until she grabbed me and told me something very important.”

Zach had a hint of this. “Ghosts can’t hurt you.”

Joey made a  _so-so_  motion with his hand. “That. But also that I couldn’t let them scare me, or ruin my life, without me letting them. They live off anger and fear, you know. Guilt, too.”

Zach scrunched his brow. “So what happened?”

“The moment I accepted and believed that, the ghost went away—the feelings of it went away. And I never saw it again.”

Joey removed a hand from under the covers, letting it hover mere inches above Zach’s chest. “I’m not psychic, Zach. Auntie Marie is, and she saw nothing.”

He laid his palm down, and Zach laid his hand on top; feeling reassurance in the rough skin under his fingers. 

“Zach, it was just my grief. It was easier to be scared of a ghost than to be scared of life without Pop. Pop… would never have done that.”

“I’m sorry, Joe.”

“No,  _I’m_  sorry.” Joey watched his face. “I’m sorry you’re letting this ghost hurt you and rob you of your life.” 

Zach watched the hands move with the shudder of his chest. “Joe—“

“You can’t help it, right? You’re just so damn tired, and you can’t help it.”

Zach bit his lip. “I can’t.”

“You’re wrong, Zach. You completely  _can_. You can sit up and decide you can still live after losing him.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“No, you’re right. After you sit up, you’ll want to lie right back down again. But you won’t. Because you’ll remember you have two babies who miss you—a big brother that misses you, too.”

Zach closed his eyes. “They keep coming up here.”

A hand pressed against his face. “Then go down to them. Eat breakfast with them. Then call your doctor and schedule physicals for all of you, so you have an excuse to admit you’re depressed.” 

“I don’t want meds.”

“Fine, then tell Auntie Marie and she’ll fix something for you. Just tell  _somebody_. Don’t lie here in the dark, thinking nobody cares or wants to listen to you.”

Zach’s eyes felt warm and tight, and he opened them slowly. “Okay.”

“And do it  _today_. Do it when you wake up. Sleep one last night with the ghost, then say goodbye.”

Zach turned on his side and burrowed his face into Joey’s shoulder. “I don’t want to.”

“But you will. And you’ll be so glad you did.” Joey kissed the top of his head. “Love you, Z. If you can’t take care of yourself for the kids, or for you, then take care of yourself for  _me_ —please?”

Zach let out the sobs he’d been holding back, the balm Joey’s fingers rubbing lazy circles into his side. Maybe he had sobbed hours, maybe he had fallen asleep right away. But his eyes were sore and the light suddenly too bright when dawn finally woke him, the sun bleeding through curtains as Anton dropped a cloth book over the side of his crib. 

Zach stretched out his limbs, knowing instantly that the familiar warmth of Joey was gone. But he tried not to be disappointed in that, catching Anton’s eyes as he tried to sit up.

“Hey, baby,” he said softly, his voice still rough and craggy. But when Anton beamed him a bright smile, giggling with devilish glee as he threw another book on the floor, it was incredibly infectious. 

“ _Breakfast_ ,” Zach concluded, lifting Anton into his arms. 

Though it was an ordinary Thursday morning, Zach waited for Zoe in the kitchen—still in his pajamas, yet he had bowls of cereal poured for all of them. 

Later as he watched Zoe board the school bus from a window, he took a deep breath for the obstacle that was the rest of his day. But he played with Anton, did a batch of laundry, and badly hummed to the potted herbs on the kitchen sill,  _Here Comes the Sun_. 

***

It had been hard to let the depression go. It had been a warm cocoon that numbed him to life, familiar and safe. But eventually the passage of time had won out, making things fade to almost bearable.

His heart was still a peeled scab of raw and stinging skin, but he was willing to breathe in cold realities, now. Painful, sure—but once Zach stepped back into the stream life, determination kept him anchored there, unwilling to let him drown. 

There were also herbal remedies and spells. Tea, friends. Medication. 

But mostly it was watching Zoe and Anton grow up. Zoe, a solemn girl that was perhaps too curious for her own good, but intelligent and full of confidence. Anton, going from sporadic words to sentences to getting his hair chopped—and the beautiful curls going along with it.

Zach was so proud of them. They constantly amazed him, and he genuinely enjoyed their company—despite Anton going through a knock-knock joke phase that seemed to never end. But they somehow made everything work, picking up the pieces of a tattered past and sewing together a new future. 

In fact, things started to seem almost…  _normal_. Like that was the way life had always been. Tragedy became a faded wallpaper, and even the harsh realities of regular life seemed to miss and skip over them.

Until— 

After Anton’s first day of school, Zoe dragged him into the herbal shop and slammed and locked the door behind them.

Zach got down from his stepstool, taking in her harried and anxious expression. “What’s going on?”

But the chant echoed off the windows, despite voices struggling to join in unison. 

 _“Witch, witch, you’re a witch! Witch, witch, you’re a witch!”_

Anton looked up at him. “Dad, can’t we just curse them all?”

Zoe slapped his shoulder. “ _No._  It’s against the Rede—‘an it harm none, do what thou wilt’.”

Anton made a face and rubbed his arm. “Dad, Zoe just—“

Zach waved them off. “Anton, don’t whine. Zoe, hitting isn’t in the Rede, either.” Not that Zach believed or remembered the Wiccan Rede.

As he moved between them, Zoe frowned. “No it isn’t—“ 

Zach put a hand out to shush her as he peeked around the window shade, raising an eyebrow at the adults he saw among the mob. 

 _“Witch, witch, you’re a witch!”_

“You’d think after hundreds of years they’d learn something new,” Zach muttered to himself, then twisted the blinds closed with a heavy sigh. 

***

 _Dear Joey – How are things? It seems like forever since I last heard from you. Actually, checking your letters, it’s been a month. What’s going on? Your cell got turned off._

 _I wanted to send you school pictures. Anton just smiles that way, like a Munster, I have no idea why. Zoe of course got dolled up by Mama, which explains why she looks about to murder someone – Auntie Marie laughed for days about that. _

 _Both are doing well in school. Zoe is still my over-achiever, somehow juggling ballet and flute practice. Anton is the class flirt and talks too much – I know, shocking. At the end of the month they both have school concerts, if you’re up for it. Zoe has a flute solo, and Anton is going to try synchronized partner dancing – don’t worry, I’ll take video, if nothing else. I think Anton even has to dress up like a tree._

 _Anyway, they’re okay, but – I guess I wanted to call because of the stupid witch-chanting. It’s started up again – practically the same freaking people, too. I suppose it was only a matter of time, although Zoe had avoided it for the most part. Rumor has it that Anton tried to curse a bully on his first day of school, and that’s what set it off. But where he set it off, Zoe apparently finished it – where one goes, the other follows. Just like we used to be._

 _My wishes never stood a chance, did they?_

 _Despite my warnings, Zoe has dipped her hands into everything. It started innocently enough with letting her help Auntie Marie in the garden, and the rest was history. I knew it was beyond fixing when I found a charm bag in her backpack made of green felt, filled with daffodil petals and caraway seeds. For success at school, I imagine. _

 _I know Auntie Marie and Mama were encouraging the magick work, but – you? Et tu, Joey? She’s been experimenting with the Tarot, and I swear it’s the same Morgan Greer deck you used to use._

 _So now Zoe joins me at the shop, helping me mix lotions and scented bath oils, picking my brain for every speck of information I know. And when we get home, she tries to talk me into the esbats and sabbats – one side is Zoe, and the other is Mama and Auntie Marie, all of them conning me into just one ritual. _

 _So, I had my blow-up. And while I screamed and yelled at Auntie Marie for her audacity of indoctrinating my children, she pointed out what I still believed – never stopped believing, really._

 _I still celebrated the traditional holidays. I couldn’t give up Beltane, or Mabon, or sharing Samhain with the kids. I never stopped observing the phases of the moon when I was gardening, or took the fenugreek out of my wallet, or was unkind to the Earth. Hell, I still used that spell for a string of green lights on busy mornings._

 _Once a witch, I guess you’re always a witch. It was like a piece of me was missing, but I wouldn’t acknowledge it. I still haven’t entirely, but… I am getting there. Slowly. Zoe is chipping away at my resolve._

 _Anton participates now, although I would’ve taught him the shielding spell, regardless. The bullies seemed to have left him alone – although whether it’s from imagining white light around him or Zoe’s fierce stare, your guess is as good as mine._

 _Joey – I don’t have a good feeling in my gut. I wish I could be there, the fierce sibling to protect you. I won’t ask, but I won’t stop worrying about you. But just know there’s always room at the shop. Hell, I could certainly use a photographer for advertisements. _

 _I love you, Joey – take care of yourself. Your Little Z says hi. Anton, however, is too busy running amuck in the garden – Gods, he’s so much like you, it must be karmic revenge – Zach_

***

 _Dear Z – Sorry, life has been hectic lately. One of my pieces got a complaint at a gallery, I got thrown off a shoot while I was in Central Park, one of my clients won’t pay up – life has been kind of a whirl. When I’m not sleeping or taking care of Karl, it seems I forget there are other things in life. I’m sorry, Zach._

 _Taking a moment before work to write down that I’m okay. Yeah, the phone got turned off, unfortunately. Karl hurt his back on a production, and he got thrown off a show – he’s getting disability, but it’s not a lot. So he’s been laying around here upset and bored, and I have to pick up some slack. That’s what you do when you love each other, I guess – Gods, we’ve been together some ten years now. I can’t even imagine._

 _But next week I leave for a small gig in LA – so far away. It’s strange how my heart was set on New York, and I’ve never seemed to have left it. But there’s a man out there who likes my work, and he’s paying for me to go. What a great opportunity – I want to do it, I really want to go. See what the beaches are like, what the clubs are like. There’s a big museum out there, although nothing like MoMA. But maybe I’ll run into a movie star and get his autograph – you never know. I should buy some shades for the occasion._

 _Karl is… well, less than pleased. But you know how he gets._

 _I’ll bring back some sand and shells for you guys. I love you all. Oh – and I can’t say I’m not pleased about Little Z. I guess now you know why I never told you about the secret cubbys. I’m so glad you’ve returned to us, welcome home – Joey_

***

He grabbed the cordless absently. “Hello?”

 _”Zach?”_

The dishes dropped in the sink as Zach looked up sharply. “Joe?”

There was shattered breathing on the line, then a whispered,  _”Zach, I—I want to come home.”_

Zach turned from the kitchen counter and marched into the living room. “I’ll come, Joey. Let me tell Mama—“

 _”Zach, I love you.”_

“I love you too—are you okay?” The last Zach asked hesitantly, hoping like hell Joey wouldn’t hang up.

Instead there was a pause, before a very quiet,  _”No. I went to LA, and—Zach, he followed me here. He wouldn’t let me go to the shoot.”_

Zach took a deep breath. “Are you hurt?”

 _”No.”_

“Is he there with you?”

 _”No.”_

Zach looked around quickly for a pad and pen. “Can I convince you to call the cops?” 

There was a moment before another,  _”No.”_

Zach uncapped the pen angrily. “Tell me where you are.” 

The scrawl tore lines into the paper. But after assuring Joey he’d be there soon, Zach hung up and ran out into the yard. He was out of breath when he informed Mama and Auntie Marie, but it didn’t stop him from running back inside and hurrying frantically throughout the house. 

***

Zach slung the small duffel bag over his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Call us when you’re there,” Auntie Marie said. “Hell, call the cops now and then call us from the station.”

Zach shook his head. “I don’t think so. Joe would probably hide Karl, switch hotels, and I’d never see him again. I can’t risk it.”

Mama bit her lip. “Are you sure?” 

Zach wasn’t, but he nodded anyway. “We’re on the next flight after I land. We’ll be home before you know it.” 

He hugged Mama tightly, hoping he had reassured her. He then turned towards Zoe and Anton, bending down to hug them as well. “You two be good.” He kissed their cheeks. “Listen to Grandma and Oma.”

Zoe gave him a strange look. “Dad, we’re just going to the equinox festival. It’s not a big deal.” 

Zach huffed a humorless laugh, giving a dirty look to Mama. “Are you  _kidding_  me?”

She gave him a patient smile. “They accept all ages, dear.”

“Yeah, I remember—and all the  _naked_  people dancing under the full moon!” Zach said tersely, straightening to glare at the adults. 

But Auntie Marie remained unfazed and piped up, “But nudity is optional.”

“ _Right_ ,” Zach said, vaguely remembering all the nude belly dancers he saw as a child, their expanses of flesh burned into his memory. But he didn’t have time to argue. “Fine—have fun you guys.” He ruffled Anton’s hair. “I’m sorry you’re about to be traumatized.” 

“It’s a life experience, dear!” 

But Zach didn’t stay to retort, waving at all of them before he raced out to his car. Truth be told he was more concerned with catching a flight to someone he loved in California, rather than all the fat naked people his children would probably see at a hippie festival. 

***

Zach thought that with all the inventions of modern technology  _somebody_  would’ve made a flight less than ten fucking hours. 

The projected seven had already been difficult to swallow, with the layover in Memphis making him silently rage. There was a mechanical failure, of course—screw the Fates and their meddling ways—and by the end of it all, Zach had half a mind to just  _walk_  to Los Angeles. By 6pm, after hours of sitting, he was about to strangle the hostess with all his Snickers wrappers knotted end-to-end if  _someone_  didn’t move  _something_  to get him closer to his brother.

Thankfully, after praying endlessly to the Gods in his head, an unexpected route had arrived in record time. Their former projection of twelve hours went down to ten, and Zach tried to thank his lucky stars and deities. But his legs bounced too anxiously, his head unable to rest on the pillow like those around him on the late-evening flight. 

Eventually near 1am his plane landed, and he ran to the first taxi he saw to give them the hotel address. 

Zach had called from a pay phone numerous times—each time unanswered, each time causing his nerves to unravel even more. Auntie Marie had probably been right. Gods, if Joey died, Zach would never forgive himself—would never be able to look Mama in the eye, or tell his children what happened to their beloved uncle. 

But the taxi dropped him off at a skeezy motel on the outskirts of LA, with cracked pavement and a green swimming pool the only things he saw in the nighttime. Few cars were parked in the lot for a late Thursday evening, and Zach began to wonder if he even had the right address. 

Lights flickered overhead as he sought out the room number—109, 110, 111. Zach climbed a flight of creaky outside stairs and finally saw 213. 

He tried to glance through the window, although it was covered in blinds. He briefly wondered if he should knock. The room was dark, and maybe Joey was trying to get some sleep—or maybe Karl was in there, keeping his brother quiet. Or worse, maybe no one was in there at all, confirming his worse fears and making Zach too late.

He tried the handle, and was surprised to find the door had been kept slightly ajar. “Joey?” Zach said quietly, slowly peeking inside. 

The room looked unoccupied. The bedspread not even rumpled, the dresser and table immaculate with stationary and folded towels. The only exception was a figure on the floor, cowering by a nightstand and blinking against the sudden beams of moonlight. 

Zach threw the door open and raced forward, falling to the ground before him. “ _Joey_ ,” he said breathlessly, relieved and horrified all at once. 

Joey flinched as Zach rubbed his knees, and while that stung, Zach didn’t pull away. He only observed his brother shaking, leaning against the wall with arms and hands covering his face, unable to look him in the eye.

Zach had no idea what to do—if there was even a right thing to do. If he were at home and in charge of the situation, he’d cradle Anton or Zoe in his arms, or cover them in a blanket. He’d have aloe, he’d have peroxide, he’d have chamomile tea—or even better than those things, he’d have Mama as his cavalry, who always knew the right words to say. 

But Zach had no words. All he had was the desire to touch his brother—to see, to definitely  _know_  what he was dealing with. 

With little resistance, Zach gently pulled Joey’s hands away from his face and saw the mottled coloring. A purple bruise stained an eye, fading into green and yellow across a cheek, while his nose had streaks of dried blood. His lips were cut and chapped, and a tongue darted out quickly to wet them. 

But the worst was the guilt that was smacked across Joey’s face, as if Joey were apologetic for even asking Zach to come rescue him. While bruises healed, that sort of shame punched Zach in the gut. 

“Can you stand?” Zach asked gently, swallowing all of his emotions. 

Joey reached out to him and nodded, letting himself be hoisted up. Bones cracked in the silence, and Zach put an arm around his back. 

“Come on, I saw a diner not far from here.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Not the point—“ Zach caught himself, speaking softer. “I’ll get you coffee and we’ll talk. At least grab a cab there. I brought you a change of clothes.”

Zach grabbed his duffel bag and slung it hastily over his free shoulder, wanting to get them out of there as fast as possible. He didn’t bother closing the door behind them, letting Joey lean against him as they took the stairs back down. Where Joey was distant before now he clung, needy and melting into his side, and Zach found himself grateful for the contact. 

Zach also bit his tongue, wanting to ask where Karl was. If not to watch out for him, maybe to at least beat him into a bloody pulp.

“Karl’s been drinking down there,” Joey said as he pointed aimlessly to a row of nightclubs behind them. “I bet he’s putting dollars in a stripper’s ass right now.”

“Well, the diner I saw is in the opposite direction.” Zach missed the warmth at his side as Joey regained footing and they walked apart. “Do you need anything from your room before we go?”

Joey took a moment to consider it, then shook his head as they rounded the insect-filled pool towards the sidewalk. “I was only supposed to be here two days. I have my knapsack with clothes, but—fuck it.”

Zach internally agreed. Even if Joey had said he had a million dollars back there, Zach would have told him to forget it. “Then let’s head off.”

They reached the grass beside the road, and Joey walked better with each passing minute. “I don’t know what got into him. We had been talking, and I told him the guy was just my friend. But for some reason that set something off and he swung—“

Zach was nodding along, only to discover ten paces ahead that he was suddenly alone.

“Joe?”

Zach turned around, seeing Joey clasp the front of shirt and feeling around his neck. 

“My Celtic cross. Fuck, Zach, I can’t—“

“We can buy another one.” Zach tugged his elbow. “Come on—“

“No, no, it’s from Pop—Pop gave it to me.” Joey shrugged him off. “It’s in the car, it’ll just take a minute.“

“Joe, Pop wouldn’t—“

But Joey was already running back, leaving Zach far behind. Zach stood and looked exasperated from a distance, before he finally dropped his bag and jogged quickly to catch up. 

Zach looked around anxiously, trying to find the car Joey had dipped into. They had been home free, and now all his senses were ringing with alarm bells. He felt his fingers and legs shaking with each passing minute, until his eyes finally caught his brother kneeling in the front seat of a Camry, fingers ripping a necklace off the rearview mirror. 

“ _Got it_!” Zach heard the words as they echoed in the parking lot—and then get choked as Joey was jerked into the darkness of the car. 

Zach’s breath caught, his heart already running across pavement. He didn’t even think about it, his hands gripping the Camry door with the single-minded intent on dragging Joey back out. 

But he didn’t see Joey. At first there was unnatural darkness as Zach peered inside, the tinted windows further shading the night and causing confusion. But the metal of the gun caught the parking lot lights, glinting as it rested on the shoulder of the driver’s seat. 

“Get in,” a cracked voice demanded, the click of a barrel ringing in Zach’s ears. 

But he was still confused. And worst of all, Zach left his cell phone in the duffel bag, like a fucking moron. 

“Get  _in_ ,” the voice tersely demanded, followed by a familiar yelp. 

So without thinking, Zach did exactly that—sitting in the driver’s seat and looking into the rearview mirror. 

A dark blanket flipped out of sight, and Joey was sprawled across the lap of a dirty and rugged man—unshaven, smelling like piss and beer, and grinning a wicked smile. 

“Close the door,” Karl said, and Zach felt his mind go blank with any good ideas. 

As he closed the driver’s door, he mentally chastised himself for not calling the cops the moment they left the hotel. He would’ve had Joey with him—he could’ve seen where his brother went if they had argued. Even worse, he regretted for not calling the cops in Pittsburgh. If the end result was going to be both of them dead, he would rather never see Joey again than to see him suffer. 

But as Zach straightened up, watching the barrel of the gun caress Joey’s temple, he knew it was long-passed should’ve/could’ve/would’ves. 

Karl pursed his lips. “Hmm, thinkin’ I’d like to hit a few casinos.” He looked directly at Zach in the mirror. “Are you a gamblin’ man?”

How fucking clichéd was that? But Zach got the point. “You want to go to Vegas?”

“If you would be so  _kind_ ,” Karl said, pressing deeply into Joey’s head. “’Bout four hours. Won’t even need to stop for gas.”

Zach clenched his jaw as he turned the ignition. What were the chances of driving to the police station without Karl catching on? Or driving recklessly in front of a cop? Or even crashing into a fence, or a highway median—anything to get attention, to get him and Joey out of this car.

But instead he put the car in reverse and backed out—wondering against all hope whether there was any way to  _not_  make it to Vegas. 

***

About an hour in, and Karl had made it through a quarter-bottle of Smirnoff and was singing a show tune.

“On a cleaaaar day, rise and look aroooooound you—and you’ll see whooooo you arrreeee – “

Joey and Zach exchanged looks, with Zach’s knuckles white on the steering wheel. 

“On a clear day, you can see foreeeeever – “

Zach gritted his teeth as Karl leaned forward, nudging the bottle against Zach’s shoulder. “Want some buddy, huh?”

Zach pushed it away and shook his head, leaving Karl to fall into the backseat again, with gun still cradled in his lap. 

Sure, Karl seemed thoroughly drunk off his ass. Yet there would also be strange times of complete lucidity. Like now as he pulled Joey onto his knee, with his gun digging into Joey’s stomach as it traveled under the waistband. 

Zach met Joey’s gaze in the rearview mirror, clearly seeing his own brown eyes widen in panic. Zach had hoped to God that Karl would just fucking  _pass out_  or something, and Zach could throw his stupid ass out of the car. But as Zach was about to twist and jerk the steering wheel to throw Karl backwards, he noticed that Joey’s lips were moving and annunciating, his eyes doing more than staring back. 

 _Glove-box. Bot-tle. Glove-box. Bot-tle._

When they were growing up, there had been times where Zach felt as though he could read Joey’s mind. He just wished this were one of them, having no clue what Joey meant—but he glanced at the glove compartment, anyhow. 

Karl was pulling up Joey’s shirt, the gun caressing ribs as Karl bit an earlobe. 

“Want a show, little brother?” Karl rasped, staring directly at him. But Zach’s regard remained on Joey, whose lips had stopped moving to feign a moan as he turned his head, catching Karl’s attention with a kiss.

Zach fought his disgust as his eyes kept on the mirror. Truthfully he just wanted to throw up, but instead his hand sneaked to quietly open the glove compartment, trying not to make a sound. He was worried he’d have to dig while he watched the road, but a small, dark blue bottle practically rolled into his hand. 

Zach folded it into his palm and knew instantly what it was. Auntie Marie used the same colored bottles to hold delicate tinctures of herbs; dried leaves that were either soaked or needed to be kept away from sunlight. Either way, Joey used very few of these, and only one herb with any regularity—especially with one particular person. 

 _Belladonna_. 

“ _Mmm_ , you’re such a little slut, aren’t you? Want it so bad?”

Zach refocused on the mirror, only to see the gun traveling around Joey’s waist. It scraped against skin, harshly digging into the crack and backside of Joey’s jeans.

As Joey hissed at the metal, Karl smacked his head. 

“You fucking  _like_  it, you little bitch—“ and as Karl forced Joey to bend over with his metallic thrust, Zach swung back an arm. 

“Don’t you  _touch_  him!” 

The car swerved and jerked, and the backseat occupants jostled apart as Zach regained control of the wheel

“ _Hey_!” Zach yelled shrilly and swung again, finally grasping the Smirnoff bottle and smacking Karl’s leg with it. 

The action caused Karl to grab Zach’s forearm, nails digging into skin as he growled with anger. But Zach yanked the bottle forward, trying to keep his indifferent composure. 

“Fuck man, give me a break—I just need a  _drink_ ,” Zach spat, watching Karl’s expression as he took a long gulp of vodka.

It was slow to register, but Karl wound up grinning, allowing the gun to loll in his lap. 

Zach made a loud and exaggerated  _ahhh_  as the bottle settled between his legs, although he fought the urge to spit everything out. It was some fruity flavor, for crying out loud, and he hated vodka to begin with. 

“ _Mmm_ —that’s it, little brother,” Karl said as he grabbed Joey’s hand. He smoothed the hand up his thigh, then pressed Joey’s palm against the bulge in his jeans. “I  _like_ brothers.” 

Zach wanted to make a face, but he was too busy dumping the contents of the blue bottle. With the amount of alcohol it took to dilute leaves of belladonna, along with the vodka that remained, he wanted to make sure there was enough to drug the fucker. 

It was their one shot—perhaps the only one they’d get. 

Zach upended it all, counting on the bottle being small and holding very little. He swirled the tincture, making sure it married, before he thrusted the bottle into the backseat. 

“Left some for you,” Zach said cheerfully, and hoped to Gods it would work. 

Joey was rubbing the front of Karl’s jeans, and his face betrayed the same hope as Karl took a large swig.

***

“You’ll feel paaaaaaaaart ooooffffff every mountain, seeea and shooore – “

Zach and Joey exchanged a look from the curbside, as Karl stood before them taking the longest piss in human history. 

“You can heeear from far and neeeear, a world you’ve never heard beforreeeeee – “

“Does he know another song?” Zach whispered, mentally calculating the odds of pushing Karl over into the bushes.

“He was in that play years ago,” Joey answered, then hissed, “Fuck, Zach—did you put in enough? I usually use half a bottle to knock him out.”

“I don’t know, maybe the alcohol—“

“Dammit, we’re in the desert, how will we ever—“

“You can seee forever, and ever, and evvvveeeerrrr mooorrreeeeee!”

Karl waved the gun in a showy arc as he shook himself and staggered on his feet. 

“Encore, encore!” he shouted to the bushes, then turned to face them. “I love that fucking sonnn _ngh_.” 

Zach narrowed a look as Karl patted his cheeks, seeming confused as he shuffled towards them. 

“My fash, it feelsh… schnumb.” He tried to grab his nose. “Veres my fingshers—“

They both watched as hazel eyes rolled into the top of his head, the whites exposed as his head looked upward and beyond. Knees shook, then finally buckled—a gurgle escaping as Karl face-planted into the asphalt, bones cracking at awkward angles. 

He didn’t move. There was not even a twitch. Zach and Joey looked at each other with alarm, then quickly scrambled to roll him over. 

There was a pool of vomit, a trail of spit from mouth to pavement. Zach kneeled beside him, while Joey dared to touch the body. 

A slap, then another slap. Joey’s fingers found a pulse point as hands felt Karl’s chest. 

Zach squinted, trying to eye Karl’s breathing. “Is he... out for the count?”

But Joey remained quiet as he kept his fingers on Karl’s neck. A minute passed and he shook his head, then another two minutes—but eventually Joey looked up with wide eyes. 

“Zach, he’s—he’s  _dead_.”

“What?” Zach reached for a wrist, trying to feel for the pulse himself. But on a closer inspection, there was no mistaking the aura of death—no pulse, no movement, no _nothing_. 

Zach stood up quickly. “Oh God.”

“Zach—“

“We’ve got to go to the hospital—the police. It was self-defense, they would know.“

“Zach, calm down.”

“Oh God, what if they take away my  _children_?” Zach paced beside the car. “It was hard enough being fucking gay, they would use any excuse—“

“Zach, no one is taking away your kids.”

“I put it in the bottle,  _I_  poisoned him. There would be a trial, and Child Services would take them away—“

Joey stood up, trying to catch Zach’s eye. “Zach— _Zach_.Maybe he’ll wake up.”

Zach whirled around and kicked the car. “ _Fuck!_ ”

“It’s going to be okay, Zach… help me heft him in the backseat.”

That stopped Zach in his tracks, his wild eyes taking in Joey’s unusally calm countenance. “What?”

Joey hooked hands under Karl’s arms. “We’re going to take him home.”

Zach’s mouth gaped, sputtering until he was able to spit out, “Like  _hell_  we are!”

Joey grunted from the weight. “We’re gonna—use—the spell.” 

Zach wanted to yell  _What spell?_ , but his mind caught up instantly and he froze. 

“You’ve  _got_  to be kidding.”

“We’ll animate him, throw him out, then send him on his way to the cops. If he dies there, that ain’t our problem.” 

Zach didn’t have a clear rebuttal on his tongue, and he stared as Joey dragged the body across pavement. Zach had killed someone—he had  _truly_  killed someone. He had even taken someone’s life in anger, and had enjoyed it with spite. 

Joey dropped the body short of the car, with his eyes calculating the logistics of the backseat. Zach’s dear brother Joey, whose bruises were still blooming—new ones growing at the hem of his t-shirt, no doubt where the gun had jabbed him. 

Zach marched forward and grabbed Karl’s feet. “This is ridiculous—we’re clear across the country!”

“We’ll prop him up.”

They threw Karl in the backseat, and Joey circled to the other side of the car to straighten him up. “Got a pillow and blankets in your trunk?”

Zach shot Joey a look—he lived in the Northeast with kids. Of  _course_  he did. 

And once they tucked the blanket around Karl’s body, it seemed convincing enough for the time being. At least in the dark. 

Joey got behind the wheel, turning the ignition as Zach slouched in the passenger seat. 

“We’re so screwed.”

“No we’re not.”

“Yes we are.”

Joey revved the engine. “We have enough gas for Vegas. Once we hit the stretch of highways, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

As they pulled onto the road, Zach analyzed Joey’s profile—the bruise swallowing his eye in the dark, stubble completing the awful mess that was his brother. 

Zach swallowed. “I love you, Joe.”

Joey reached over and squeezed his knee. 

***

By the time they reached Pittsburgh, Zach felt as dead as their cadaver in the backseat. Both of them were exahausted beyond measure, but at least Joey’s bruises had started to fade—now a sickening yellow more than purple or blue. When Mama came home, at least she wouldn’t see the worst of it. 

Well—not that there weren’t worst things to worry about. 

Thankfully it was dusk, and Auntie Marie’s bushes and wild gardens allowed them to conspicuously carry the body inside.

“Gods, how can he smell  _worse_?” Zach huffed as they both swung the body onto the spell parlor table, then positioned him in the center.

Joey shook his head. “This is absolutely disgusting.”

Zach was too tired to glare at him, his hands finding and hefting the familiar grimoire from a shelf. It was not like it had been—some pages curled and stained from the grass—but all the spells were still there. Especially the one they were looking for. 

Zach fingers gingerly flipped the pages, trying to remember what section of the book the spell had appeared in. 

“Zach, Zach—hurry. What if the damn spell has a time limit?”

That hadn’t occurred to him, but he was over his panicking stage. “Well, then we’re screwed anyway.”

Joey let out an exasperated sigh. “Then what will we  _do_?”

“I don’t know, bury him.” But Zach’s fingers found the right page, his eyes scanning the ingredients and directions. “This says within three days, so we’re good.”

“You sure?”

Zach shot him a look over the book’s edge. “If it’s not, like I said—we’re  _screwed_.”

Joey threw up his hands in exasperation as Zach listed off the ingredients. 

“Asafoetida powder, 13 black candles, needles—“

Joey raced around as he opened drawers and pulled things outs.

“A goblet, an athame, white cloth—“

“What’s the goblet for?”

Zach propped the book on the edge of the table and took the items from Joey. “Our blood, of course.”

Joey froze. “What?”

“Apparently we need to cut our hands and pour it into his mouth.” 

Joey made a face. “What the  _fuck_?”

“Spread out the white towel over his chest.”

Joey shook his head, yet did what he was told. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” 

Zach placed the candles around them, lighting them counter-clockwise with matches. “North, South, East, West—may the God and Goddess heed our request.”

Joey mumbled along. “Earth, Air, Fire, Water—come around and hear our desire. This is so fucked up.” 

Zach lit the last candle and blew out the match. “Put an ounce of powder in the goblet.”

Joey grabbed the small canister, coughing as the opened lid sent dust in the air. “This might smell worse than he does.”

Zach went back to the book. “Okay, while you’re doing that, I’ll insert the needles in his eyes—“

“Shut the fuck  _up_.” 

Zach almost smiled at Joey’s gawking expression. “Our dear Karl needs to see when he wakes up, right?”

Joey stared at him. “You’re off your fucking rocker.” 

It was a valid statement, but Zach aimed a needle into an eyelid and pressed gently. “No, I’m just desperate.”

When Zach had propped open the other eyelid, Joey seemed to shake himself and make the powder ready. 

When he held out his wrist, Zach shook his head. 

“We have to chant first.” Zach looked down at the book. “ _Blood to body and body to life, blood to body and body to life_ —okay, we need to say it twenty-seven times together, then cut ourselves, then make him drink it.”

“Twenty- _seven_?” 

Zach hovered his hands over the body, then stared at Joey until his hands did the same. 

Looking deep into each other eyes they nodded, then intoned on the same breath: “ _Blood to body and body to life, blood to body and body to life_ …”

Candles flickered around them as they continued, and by the twenty-fourth a wind pounded at the windows, roaring as their voices grew louder. 

“ _Blood to body and body to life_!”

Joey held the goblet as Zach took the knife. He sliced their palms, and rivulets leaked into the cup. A minute passed as several inches formed at the bottom, which seemed like enough—well, to at least resurrect a dead squirrel. Or to resurrect Harold and Siouxsie Sioux, who were both avoiding the spell parlor and hissing constantly. 

Zach withdrew his hand and Joey followed suit. 

“How will we make him drink it?” Joey asked, watching Zach peer at the contents. 

“Lift up his head.”

Joey had to use both hands as Zach stirred the blood with his athame. Zach was pretty certain that the last time he used each utensil was to stir kool-aid for Zoe on May Day, giving her and and Anton a non-alcoholic substitute as the adults drank red wine. 

Zach made a face—he was  _so_  consecrating new tools if he survived this. 

Th goblet was placed against Karl’s lips, and as Zach propped them open he whispered, “Drink this, you fucking bastard.”

The blood splashed uselessly over his mouth, pooling under his tongue. Joey tilted Karl’s head further back, using his finger to move the tongue out of the way. There the blood finally dripped down his throat, and Zach and Joey waited anxiously. 

“Come on,  _work_ ,” Joey whined, a minute after the goblet emptied and Karl still lay lifeless on the table. “Come  _on_.”

Zach watched eagerly for any signs of life. “Maybe the blood needs to circulate or something.”

But another minute passed and Joey shook his head. “Fuck, it didn’t work.“ He leaned forward, a choked breath too loud in the room. “Gods, I killed my boyfriend.”

“He was trying to kill you.”

Joey shook his head and bit his lower lip. “But I killed  _him_.”

Zach was about to further protest, until Joey smacked Karl on both sides of the face. 

“Wake up, you son of bitch—wake the fuck  _up_!” 

Joey was encircling hands around Karl’s neck, finally finding an outlet for his repressed aggression, when an arm shot up— _Karl’s_  arm shot up—and punched Joey in the jaw. 

The body sat up jerkily and wobbily, almost falling off the table. There was an obnoxious belch as Karl tried to speak—the voice robotic, yet akin to something from Hell. 

“You—kill!” 

Joey backed into a shelf ledge, his eyes wide as arms swung at him. 

“Kill—you!”

That was the extent of the vocabulary as Karl staggered off the table, heading straight for Joey at the wrong end of the room. 

Zach raced towards both of them as Joey babbled. 

“Karl, baby, wake up—wake up, it’s me. You don’t wanna hurt me, you love me—“ 

But Joey was cut off by a hand around his throat, and the lumbering body suffocating and crushing him. 

“Kill—you!”

Zach pulled at Karl’s arms with all his strength, punching Karl’s head and back to let Joey go. But Karl could’ve been a statue for all the difference it made, only intent on one purpose.

“You—kill!”

Joey made a choking sound. “Karl, stop—“

And with a cast iron frying pan that Zach found in the kitchen, he got Karl to do exactly that—by smashing it over his head, thus killing him a second time. 

***

Rain wasn’t that uncommon in New England. But Zach wondered why it had to rain fucking  _now_ , when they were digging the deepest hole they could muster for Karl’s bedsheet-wrapped body. 

They were at six feet when Joey stopped and turned to him. “This really doesn’t encompass the brevity of the situation, but, um— _thank you_.”

Zach lifted one last shovel of dirt and nodded. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

“I know it’s my fault—you were right before. All those times I should’ve left, and never did—“

Zach staked the shovel in the dirt. “Joey, I love you. We all do stupid shit. You didn’t know this would happen.”

“Regardless—“ Joey sniffed from the rain. “Thank you. I can’t promise I’ll never do stupid shit again, but I can guarantee it’ll only be in Pittsburgh.” 

Zach stared at Joey, trying to comprehend what he was saying. When it sunk in, Zach grabbed his arms and hugged him tight—hugged the fragile man before him, who was apparently strong enough to dig six feet into the ground, but not enough to take care of his own life.

He squeezed then pushed Joey off. “Let’s dump this jack-ass.”

Joey nodded. He climbed out of the pit first, then gave Zach a helping hand. 

There was some slight catharsis. They kicked the body forward until they both grabbed an end and threw him into the pit. The body gave a  _thump_  as it landed sure in the center. 

An hour later, their bare feet pounding down all the dirt, Zach confessed his fear: “If they find him and take away my kids, I’m killing you too, Joey.”

Joey stomped the hardest of all. “Zach, I would hand you the knife—I would hand you the goddamn knife.”

***

Mama and Auntie Marie came back early Sunday afternoon, looking sun-kissed and blessed without worry. Zoe had blue and yellow glitter painted on her face, swirling out towards the hairline and across her eyelids, while Anton had red and yellow suns stained on both his cheeks. Noah even had a new bandana. 

Zach had already been up, nursing a cup of coffee. Him and Joey had slept together in the same bed for seventeen hours straight, and it felt too familiar of a hangover. Joey’s eye had been tended to once they woke up, the compress of slippery elm and ice seeming to soothe the abused skin—yet the eyelids were still so tired and battle worn. 

When the front door opened, Zach already had a plan of action: He would tell them about the gardening him and Joey had just started. New beginnings, new plants—Joey had grown up with herbs, so it wasn’t unlikely. And Auntie Marie and Mama would love another flower patch in their garden. 

“Dad!” Zoe bounced into the kitchen, and Zach barely had time to set the mug aside before he caught her. She pushed him into the counter with her hug, which caused Zach to smile into her long, dark hair. She was rarely this enthusiastic and silly—maybe naked people under the full moon had been a good idea, after all. 

Anton piled onto the side, causing Zach to  _oof_. 

“I missed you guys! Did you have a good time?”

He looked to Zoe for the report, and she didn’t disappoint. “There were so many people—so many like us!”

“I met Flint and Axel.” Anton showed him a paper bag of goodies. “And got lots of stuff!” 

Zach took the bag and peered inside. “You guys made new friends?”

“Don’t worry Dad, we got their addresses,” Zoe said solemnly. “I’m going to help Anton write his letters when I write to Skylar and Lily.”

Zach pulled out a homemade dreamcatcher, letting it dangle from his fingerstips. “That sounds exciting. Why don’t we hang this above your bed, Anton?” 

Zoe’s grin grew wider. “We actually made that for Uncle Joey. Can we send it to him?”

Zach was about to open his mouth, when a voice from the living room rang clear beside them. 

“You can help me hang it upstairs.”

Zoe and Anton whipped their heads to the side, and then it was a blur—like spider monkeys on a rampage, they clung to their Uncle Joey. He barely kept balance, although he laughed and tried to heft up both of them at once. 

“Anton—Little Z!” He kissed both of their heads. “Did you have a good time?”

“Uncle Joey Uncle Joey  _UncleJoey_!” Zoe squeezed his neck. “Dad said you were sick. Are you okay?”

Joey pulled back to look at her properly, which caused Zoe to press a thumb to the edge of the yellow bruise. But he grinned instead of wincing. “I am now.” 

“ _Joseph_ ”

That caused both boys to turn their heads, as Mama and Auntie Marie finally walked into the kitchen. Zach tried to stifle a moment of panic—what was there to worry about? Nothing, absolutely nothing—as Mama crossed in front of him, and raised her hands to Joey’s face. 

Zoe and Anton dropped down and backed away, and Joey placed his hands over Mama’s, trying to smile into her anxious eyes. 

“Hi, Mama.”

She took a deep breath, her own fingers tracing the edge of the bruise. “Did you use slippery elm?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Then all that’s left is plenty of love.” She kissed him on the cheek, then his forehead, then lips. “Welcome home, honey.”

He wrapped her in a big hug, both of them swaying there a moment as Auntie Marie came up behind them. Joey opened an arm and she snuck in. 

“Joe, you worried us.”

“I’m sorry, Auntie Marie. Won’t let it happen again.”

“You better not.” Auntie Marie squeezed a bicep. “Did you eat?”

“No, I’m starving.”

“ _Zach_ ,” Auntie Marie tsked as Zach raised his hands. 

“We’ve been busy—honest!” Which  _was_  the truth. It’s not like Zach really had time to eat either, but you saw nobody asking  _him_. 

“We saw that new patch out front.” Auntie Marie pulled out a pan, then grabbed the butter dish near the stove. “What are you planning?”

Mama scooted Joey to the dining room table near them, but Zach didn’t miss the raise of his eyebrow.

Zach hoped the mind reading worked both ways. 

“Herbs,” Joey finally said, as Auntie Marie placed a coffee cup in front of him. “Lots and lots of herbs. For Zach’s shop.”

Both women were so pleased with the idea, that they missed the brief look of relief on Zach’s face. 

***

However, what sprouted up in the weeks to come was not an herb, but an unruly rose bush. 

“I don’t know, Mama,” Joey said honestly as they looked out the window. “I didn’t plant roses there.”

“The fairies have a mind of their own,” Auntie Marie said from the parlor. “They are all over this property, always wanting flowers. I had a tomato plant that they uprooted once.”

Mama agreed, giving an anecdote of her own vegetable garden five summers ago. But Zach joined Joey by the window—both boys unable to quell the inner disquiet over the roses being a bright, blood red. 

***

But having Joey around felt completely  _right_. It was as if all the puzzle pieces of Zach’s life finally fit into place, and the world was exactly how it should be. They hadn’t done this since they were teens, but their habits somehow slipped right into sync—the ways to annoy each other automatic, their morning habits automatic. Joey even remembered how Zach took his coffee, and Zach remembered how to fix Joey’s eggs. 

Because Joey lived with the group of them, of course. Mama wouldn’t have accepted anything else. They moved another bed into Zach’s attic bedroom; and while there was no more room for pacing, there wasn’t a need to pace, anymore. 

The kids also loved the arrangement. When Zach went to his shop some early mornings, Joey would cook breakfast and make the brown bag lunches. It became a comfortable routine—despite Joey being the worst cook in existence. But the kids didn’t complain either, although perhaps this was due to the empty containers of Lunchables and Teddy Grahams in their backapacks. 

But Joey fit in so well with all of them. Soon it seemed the bruises inside were also healed and forgotten. Joey laughed more, smiled more—reminded Zach of the boy he knew when they were growing up. 

Even better, Joey helped out in his herbal shop. He took photos of their wares and set up displays in the windows. Zach had not cared too much about the aesthetics, but Joey drew a design and went with it—beautiful blue bottles, with matching labels of entwining vines. 

“The bottles are made of recycled glass. You’re totally environmental, Z.”

Zach went with it. He hadn’t cared much either way, but he loved Joey’s enthusiasm. Plus the bottles were cost effective. 

However, as the weeks passed and their little suburb heard of Joey’s return, other things were uprooted from the past. Gossips had a field day over the rugged man with a tramp stamp and Celtic cross around his neck, unabashed with his lack of reserve in photographing their way of living. 

“I’m going with  _roots_ ,” Joey would start, trying to hone in on their acquiescence. “I want a series about people expressing reactions to their origins.” 

But whomever he had taken a photo of would decline—except a young child here or there, unaware of the rumors. 

“Apparently they think I’m stealing their soul.” Joey laid his camera on the dining room table with a sigh. “Truth is, I ran out of canisters for that ages ago.”

Zach chuckled over a pot of red sauce. “Souls are so easy to get, Hell is practically liquidating them.” 

“See Zach, this is where I was joking, and then you start actually scaring me by having it make sense.” Joey clapped him on the back. “We’re having sausage with this, right?”

“Of course. I know how you just  _love_  sausage.”

Joey barked a laugh. “Might be more in the mood for fish lately, you never know.” 

Zach made a face and tripped him, making Joey drop a stolen piece of garlic bread. 

“That was less than three seconds.“

Zach rolled his eyes in an attempt to hide a grin. “Set the table, will you?”

Joey stuffed his mouth with a growl, but did exactly that. Soon after every Quinto in the house sat around that table, passing more garlic bread. 

Zoe followed Joey everywhere, and Anton followed Zoe. That meant Zach smiled across the table at all of them, as Uncle Joey taught the two kids some more bad table manners.

Zach felt an elbow at his side, and he turned to Mama smiling at him. 

“You’re feeling what I’m feeling,” she said. “I can tell by the smile on your face. Your whole family, your loved ones—they’re near you, where they belong.”

Zach glanced at a giggling Anton, who was almost seven and still unable to keep his shirt from spills. He mirrored his Uncle Joey, who made a huge production of tucking a bib into his own belt, while Zoe rolled her eyes at the both of them, clearly appalled. 

“Yeah,” Zach said quietly as he soaked it all in. “Just like that.”

As Zoe’s serious and disapproving face cracked under Joey lowering individual noodles into his mouth, Zach decided he would love for it to stay like this—for time to freeze exactly right here, for always.

***

The Summer Solstice blended into the Fourth of July—then Lammas, then the Autumnal Equinox. The latter inspired Zach to create more spice and apple fragrances, yearning for the moment he could dig out a sweater and see the kids trick-or-treating. 

And with the incoming cold front, Zach hoped the red rose bush would finally die. Some weeks ago, him and Joey has hacked away at the unruly thing, trying to cull it to the point of no return. They even poured vinegar and hot water directly on the roots, and sawed the strongest stems until only a stump seemed to remain. They tried every trick in the book—short of chemicals to taint Auntie Marie’s organic garden. But the roses always came back—they would be there next morning, leading to another full thrush of red roses, more vibrant than anything else in the garden. 

It was disconcerting, and Zach started to wonder when Auntie Marie and Mama would figure it out. Maybe when the damn roses peeked under mounds of snow.

“Dad, I don’t want to leave,” Zoe said, looking out the spell parlor window. 

Zach zipped up her backpack. “What? Babe, you have a test today—“

“There’s a scary man out there.”

Zach narrowed his eyes. “What? Is he coming towards the door?”

Zoe shook her head. “No, he’s just standing by the rose bush.” 

Zach marched over to the window, with Joey not far behind.

Anton tugged on their sleeves. “I need my jacket.“

But he was ignored as Joey and Zach exchanged an alarmed look. Neither one saw the man Zoe spoke of, yet the origin was plainly obvious.

“Uncle Joey is walking you both to school today,” Zach stated roughly, kissing both kids on top of the head before racing into the spell parlor. 

He didn’t keep track of whether they actually left. Instead Zach hefted the heavy grimoire on top of the table, and wildly wondered where to even begin. 

There were spells for death and destruction. If magick is what caused the garden to be tainted, then surely magick would be the source to fix it—with belladonna not an uncommon ingredient to see in the spell lists. A fact which gave Zach an idea. 

“Zachary, what are you up to?”

He was busy boiling a bag of dried leaves on the stove, crumpling their entire stash of belladonna with frantic need. Zach didn’t look up at Auntie Marie until he was stirring the contents in the giant pot. 

“Um, just brewing something.”

There was too much silence after that, and Zach prayed mentally to the Gods that she wouldn’t come over and look at the package labels. He wasn’t in the mood to fumble for more excuses—he just wanted to get this shit taken care of, once and for all.

But instead he heard Auntie Marie cross behind him to the spell parlor door, leaning to look out the expanse of garden windows. 

“My goodness, that rose bush is certainly…  _aggressive_.”

Zach froze in his stirring, allowing the wooden spoon to swim helplessly on its own in the copper pot. But Auntie Marie didn’t even give him a second look, walking out the kitchen as silently as she had entered. 

***

Zach finally killed that rose bush. He poured the hot cauldron of belladonna directly onto the roots, and prayed to all the deities he could think of for help. 

Not that he likely  _deserved_  help. But for several days afterwards he waited, thinking that the fairies would eventually take revenge for Zach messing in their garden, concocting an evil plan to make his hard work moot. 

But it never did—the bush never returned. Instead it shriveled and died in its plot, gray and decrepit against the morning frost. The timing had certainly been apt, with other things wilting in the garden due to an encroaching New England winter.

Zach decided he liked winter. He felt more at ease now that things were truly dead.

Joey also seemed to relax, considering the death an early birthday gift. 

“What do you want to do for your birthday, Joe?” Zach asked him in the shop, readying another large order of herbal shampoo. While the townspeople may want to burn them all at the stake, they probably would want Zach’s cosmetics recipes, first. 

Joey shrugged. “I don’t know—stay at home.” He lined up a row of bath oils at a tilted angle. “I would rather spend it all with you. Dinner and a board game.”

Zach wasn’t sure whether to be pleased with that or incredibly worried, as he knew that sort of thing hadn’t been Joey’s style. In his letters of the past, Joey had described the hard partying of New York—the liquor, the drugs, the sex. While Zach knew Joey was trying to live simpler, there wasn’t harm in going out dancing every once in a while—and wine was plentiful in their household, always. 

“Mama,” Zach said later when most of the house was in bed. “I’ve got an idea.  _Tomorrow_. At the exact second he turns thirty-four.” 

Mama listened to the plan and smiled. 

***

Zach placed a kiss on Joey’s temple and waited for the eyelids to flutter. When they did, Zach leaned in close and whispered:

“ _Midnight margaritas_.”

Joey groaned and rolled over, completely ignoring him. 

It was to be expected. So without much movement, Zach straightened and grinned, tinging his crystal glass loudly in the silent room—the sound raising the energy of the space, making Zach’s skin go electric. 

At that Joey fell involuntarily out of bed, knocking his head against the wooden floorboards. But both boys were giggling, stifling their laughter as they stumbled out into the hall—Joey rubbing his forehead as Zach handed him his own glass. 

Mama and Auntie Marie met them on the second level, throwing confetti at Joey and holding glasses of their own. They all ting-ed the crystal in unison, and the energy in the house magnified and exploded—each ting a spell to make the world feel alive, with warmth blossoming on all their faces, the flush evident before they even touched a drop. 

They would show Joey that  _they_  knew how to party. 

As they reached the living room, everyone was already giggling with the excitement in the air. If Zach had to be blunt about it, it felt like the bliss after an orgasm—all of his particles suddenly in harmony with the Earth, humming with happiness. Even the animals felt it, with Noah barking and jumping at their heels, while Siouxsie Sioux cozied up to Harold for a nice, long nap. 

Zach turned on music and pulled Joey towards him, his grin widening as they touched chest-to-chest, feeling light-headed. Joey was trying not to laugh, but Zach insisted on spinning him more than once, making Joey stumble from dizziness. Their arms eventually wrapped around each other’s waists to steady each other, as Auntie Marie started to fill their glasses. 

They swayed goofily and Joey sputted at an awkward attempt for a dip.

“You’re a lousy dancer,” Joey accused, his eyes dancing with mirth. 

“And you’ve been acting like an old man.” Zach dipped him again. “Cut it out.” 

But Zach was grinning as he said it, and Joey grinned back as glasses were thrust eagerly into both of their hands. 

Auntie Marie held up her drink for a toast. “Midnight margaritas, ladies.  _Don’t_  let me down.”

Zach caught Joey’s eye. “I’m drinking you under the table.”

That caught a surprised laugh out of Joey. “Oh, you’re  _on_.”

They all clinked glasses and rushed their drinks—with none of them leaving the others far behind. 

Midnight turned to one o’clock, then two—the dancing halting after a while to collapse on the sofas in giggling fits. Then at three they moved into the kitchen, finding more booze and shot glasses for the dining table, where four o’clock summoned the letdown. Auntie Marie shook a clear bottle with disappointment as Zach wondered when the room started to spin. 

“On a cleeeeear day,” Mama started to sing, “riiiiiise and look arouuuuund you—“

“And you’ll seeeee whoooo you arrrrrree,” Auntie Marie joined in, leaning against her sister’s shoulder. “On a clearrrrr day, how it will astouuuund you—“

Mama leaned back. “And the glow ooooffff your beeeeeeeing—“

They crooned together, “Outshiiiiiiiines every starrrrrrr.“

Zach blinked, his hands grasping the table surface. 

“You’ll feel paaaart oooofffff every mountain, seeea and shooooree—“

Zach frowned at Joey, who had more cognizance to rip the Smirnoff bottle from Auntie Marie’s hands.

“You can see foreeevvvver, and ever, and evvvver—“ 

“Where did you get this?” Joey demanded. 

The sisters jostled and knocked their heads together, squinting to see what Joey was holding. 

Zach knew what it was—the exact brand that Karl had been drinking. Just like he had sung that stupid fucking song. 

Auntie Marie uncharacteristically giggled, then said in a sing-song, “I fouuund it on the porrrch!” 

Zach grabbed the bottle from a stunned Joey, shoving his chair back to march to the sink and shatter it. The pieces flew everywhere—but Zach didn’t give a damn. He couldn’t look at that bottle for another minute, couldn’t have its existence for another moment longer. 

He perched over the sink and watched the remaining liquid go down the drain. Zach was trying to focus and have his vision catch up with his brain, when a hand harshly pushed his shoulder. 

It wasn’t Auntie Marie like he expected, but a stern and angry Mama. 

“What have you done?” she bit out, and each word stung like a thorn. 

Zach swayed and wanted to shake his head, but he clung to the counter for support. 

Without an answer she turned to Joey, who had stood from the table and watched them in shock, his mouth also stuttering for an answer. 

When none came from him, Auntie Marie breezed past them in bristling anger while Mama pointed at the sink. 

“ _You_  clean up your own mess.” 

And with that, she turned on her heels and left. 

While Zach and Joey stared at each other, abruptly sobering, they had no idea what that truly meant. Not until hours later, when they woke unhappy with their alarms and Zoe informed them of the news: That during the night Auntie Marie and Mama had kissed both children goodbye, and had left them all before dawn. 

***

Zach winced at the sound of the glass shards hitting the bin, and touched his temple as Joey finally entered the kitchen. 

He ripped open drawers. “Don’t we have fucking aspirin?”

Zach wanted to shake his head, but instead softly said, “We’re so fucked.”

“No, no—“ Joey said, dismissing him with the wave of a hand as the other banged open cabinets. "No we're not." 

“Yes, yes we  _are_ ,” Zach whined, holding his forehead when he raised his voice. “Fuck Joey, they  _know_.”

“Well, they didn’t call the cops on us.” Joey failed several attempts to unscrew the child-proof bottle, and smacked it repeatedly against the counter in anger. 

Zach made a grab for it while grimacing. “Joey,  _don’t_ —“

“Dad?”

Zach looked down at Anton, whose backpack was unzipped and beckoning.

Zach tried to control his pained expression.“Babe, what is it?” 

Anton pointed. “I don’t have a lunch.”

Zach groaned—wow, he was certainly turning into Parent of the Year. 

But Joey stumbled to the fridge door, quickly scanning the inside contents. He wound up tossing a wrapped sub Anton’s way, where it luckily landed at the lip of the backpack. 

Anton looked down at it. “What is it?”

“My former lunch,” Joey huffed out, leaning over the sink. “Good stuff, but probably won’t touch it today.”

Anton looked at it curiously, before his sister ran into the room and gripped his shoulder.

" _We_  need to go." There was unmistakably stern look she threw her father’s way, and Zach tried not to flinch. “ _Bye_ ,” she spat, then marched her brother out. 

As the front door slammed, Zach also tried not to let that sting. But Joey mumbled, “Dude, that was  _harsh_.”

“She’s just upset,” Zach said calmly, authoritatively—like any good, wise parent. But after a minute he cradled his face in his hands, whining, “Gods, my daughter  _hates_  me. She hates that her Grandma and Oma went away.” He looked up for sympathy. “Joey, I made my daughter’s Grandma and Oma go away.”

Joey murmured inaudibly—probably something encouraging—then reached over to pat a shoulder. “We’ll be okay, Z. We’ll figure it out. I won’t let that bastard get us down.”

Zach blew a raspberry, the bad taste in his mouth suddenly too apparent. 

When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, both boys were hunched over the sink.

***

It was close to 8:30. Who the hell wanted to chat with them at 8:30? 

The doorbell rang again and Zach held his head up. 

"There's no way I can answer that." Which was partially the truth. He probably looked like death warmed over, not to mention a toothbrush and shower would be welcome about now. 

But when the doorbell rang the third and last time, Joey looked up and said, "Maybe they  _did_  call the cops."

However a minute later the metal mail slot squealed as it opened, where something obviously fell and whispered against the hardwood floor. 

"They're sure being respectful," Zach murmured, and then tried to straighten up. He clutched his stomach and moved gingerly into the foyer, where a white envelope taunted him on the floor. 

 _Zachary Quinto_ , in large letters of handwritten ink. 

  
"Fucking  _eh_ ," he whispered, as when he got closer the return address was clearly embossed in blue:  _L.A.P.D_. 

Zach had no doubt who was now hovering outside. "Okay, okay—" he started saying to himself. "We bought some time,  _maybe_."

"What's up?"

Joey stomped in—or at least Zach felt every footstep—as he opened the envelope and a business card fell out. 

 _L.A.P.D – Det. Chris Pine - Homicide Unit_

Zach wanted to faint. "Oh,  _fuck_  me." 

But when he flipped over the business card it said  _Please Call_ , instead. 

"Hey Z, there's a strange guy looking at our garden."

"What is this, shit in my mouth day?" Zach tried not to glare at Joey by the living room windows, and instead went into serious business mode. "Joe, make me some goddamn tea. I’m going to brush my teeth, put some real clothes on, and when I come back down you're going to hide upstairs."

"Like he just won't  _search_  the upstairs."

"The fact that he just didn't burst through our door does prove that, yeah," Zach snapped, but then touched his head. "Please Joe, make the mint tea."

Zach only hoped that the investigator would at least give him five fucking minutes to come up with something good.

***

After brushing his teeth and shrugging on a pair of blue jeans, Zach convinced himself that he couldn’t hide Joey. As much as he wished for a magic carpet to whisk away his older brother, the truth was that Joey wasn’t on the run— _yet_. But a good way to rouse suspicion  _would_  be to send him away. Which lead to the conclusion that in the end, Zach just had to act normal. 

Yeah,  _right_. 

The circles under his eyes were pretty epic, but at least his hair didn’t stick up at odd angles. With a white t-shirt and sweater, he just looked like an old, tired man—and hell, that was depressing, but maybe it’d make him seem defenseless as opposed to incredibly culpable. 

“You—upstairs,” Zach pointed at Joey, then drank the lukewarm tea quickly. Although the sudden turn of events was a grand dose of sobriety already, the tea was a calming ritual. 

Joey ran quickly, and by the time Zach dumped the cup in the sink twenty minutes had barely passed from doorbell to crossing the kitchen. But if Zach was lucky, maybe the dude was gone and they’d have more time to recoup— 

But of course, glancing through the spell parlor windows on his way out, the cop had only moved to another patch of bushes.

It had been six months and the garden no longer showed signs of a recent disturbance. So what was the man doing out there, and what was he looking at?

It was another minute for Zach to walk across the lawn, nervously crossing his arms in his wool cardigan. Which was a minute too long, as an unfortunate thought to passed through Zach’s head:

 _Wow._

The man, about his height, was leaning down to touch a strand of ornamental grass. 

“Can I help you?” Zach croaked awkwardly.

The man spun, startled, and light blue eyes narrowed in on him. It took a moment before his stance eased, and he tried for an easy smile. 

“You have, uh… an interesting garden, there,” the man tried unsuccessfully, the sheepish grin trying to cover up his true intent. 

The blond wore jeans and a black blazer, with a blue shirt underneath that only helped his eyes. 

Zach tried an unsuccessful smile himself. “Yeah, my aunt has a green thumb.”

The man nodded, then ticked a finger. “You wouldn’t by any chance be Zachary Quinto, would you?’

Zach tried a coy sideways glance. “Maybe I am.” 

A minute passed, with Chris and Zach just politely smiling at each other, before Zach waved a dismissive hand. “Sorry. I had just shuffled the kids off to school, and I must’ve been cleaning upstairs when you rang.”

It was partially the truth, and better than the line he delivered now. “Glad you were still out here, though.”

“I’m Chris Pine with the LAPD—“ the man pulled out his badge, the golden star catching morning sunlight, “and I’m also glad you’re still around.”

The voice was slightly gravelly, but there was a part of Zach immediately sucked in—as if the man standing before him just couldn’t possibly be the bad guy, but more like the tourists who sometimes wandered into his shop.

“LA is rather far away, Mr. Pine.”

“Call me Chris.”

“Doesn’t shorten the distance, though.”

Chris quirked a lip at the humor. “You’re right, it is. But it’s only because the person I’m tracking used to live out here.”

Zach wondered if he kept a straight face at that remark. “And what do I have to do with this person?”

Chris shrugged and said lightly, “Oh, I don’t know. Just thought you might know where your brother is.”

Zach tensed, and Chris didn’t fail to notice. 

“I just need to talk to him, Mr. Quinto,” Chris said with a steady gaze.

“It’s Zach.”

“Well nice to meet you, but I still want to talk to Joe.”

Zach held his breath—and realized instantly that he was acting on the defensive. What for?  _Zach_  knew of course, but this cop was supposed to have no idea.

It wasn’t polite to be combative with guests that Zach had no reason to fear. 

“Joe is upstairs. If you want to come in for some coffee, I’ll go wake him.” 

Chris scanned his face, as if waiting for some intent of deceit, before his eyes darted to the house behind them. “Would be a pleasure.”

Zach pressed his lips together, then awkwardly turned to head back inside. He assumed Chris would follow. He ambled up the lawn, then stretched out an arm to keep open the screendoor, of which a strong hand quickly caught. 

The man had rather long fingers. 

“Um,” Zach said, going to the coffee maker and nervously tapping the counter. “Cream or sugar?” 

“Both, please.” 

Zach quickly opened a cabinet and grabbed a cup, missing at first and almost causing a mug to roll onto his head. But he set it down in front of the already-made pot, and tried to steady his breathing as he poured the dark liquid—as if he needed to burn himself, on top of everything else. 

Chris was quiet, and Zach had no doubt that he was watching him. His body language was probably like an open book—what the hell was  _wrong_  with him? He could usually play it cool and level-headed. He was supposed to be the logical, analytical one. 

But when he turned around with the cup and sugar bowl, he was met with calm eyes on his own—now almost slate-blue against the red décor. 

 _Wow._  

“I’ll go get Joey,” Zach stuttered after he placed the cup in front of Chris and then whirled to the fridge for creamer. “He’s not a morning person. It might take him a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh no,” Chris said patiently, stirring his coffee. “Take your time.”

Which was too nice a voice to not set off alarm bells. 

Zach backed up slowly, and then tried to walk like a normal person up three flights of stairs. But instead after the second floor he bolted to Joey’s half of the attic bedroom.

“ _Joe_ ,” Zach whispered franticly, although there probably wasn’t a need. “The cop is downstairs and wants to talk to you.”

Joey was sitting on a quilted bedspread,  _Om_  and meditative pose in sync. If only Zach could have an  _ounce_  of that composure. 

“A minute, Z.”

“He’s from LA.”

“I know, Zach.” Joey took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose, opening his eyes gradually in the process. “You need to chill out.”

“Yeah, but you don’t understand.“  _Zach_  barely understood. “Joe, I don’t think I can lie to him.”

“Nonsense, you lie to me all the time. If you can lie to someone you love, you can lie to someone you don’t.” 

Zach raised a finger in protest, opened his mouth, then flustered a bit as he lowered his hand. 

“I’m going back down. He’s just having coffee, so you can clean up a bit if you want.”

“Will do, Z,” Joey said, but remained cross-legged and again closed his eyes. 

After it was apparent that Joey did not feel the same sort of urgency, Zach turned on his heels and went back down. 

He should probably dread going back and use the minute to compose his own features. But there was electricity in his fingertips, and he knew nothing would ground it except food or ridding the source of agitation. 

Which further increased when he entered the kitchen and saw Chris calmly petting Siouxsie Sioux.   
“You’re a good cat, huh?” Chris said quietly, a finger brushing against her furred cheek. “Protecting everybody in this house.”

Which would’ve been adorable—seriously, had he ever heard that cat purr?—except Siouxsie Sioux chose that exact moment to acknowledge Zach’s presence with a loud hiss, running away in exaggerated fury.

Gods, that cat and Chris were in  _cahoots_. 

“Joey will be down in a minute,” Zach said as he desperately rummaged a breadbox, pulling out a wrapped banana nut muffin. 

“Great,” Chris said calmly behind him, then managed to add, “nice cat.”

Zach had to grab another muffin, then turned to walk—hopefully in a normal fashion—to the dining room table, where Chris was perfectly at ease. 

No doubt because everything he suspected had been confirmed by Zach’s dumb mouth. 

“Want a muffin?” Zach asked as he pulled out a chair a few feet away and tossed the goodies between them. 

Chris shook his head. “Coffee’s great, thank you.”

It was too polite. Zach felt his anxiety take itself out on the muffin wrapper—of which the fucking thing wouldn’t  _open_. 

After a minute Zach wanted to run back upstairs and bury his head, for Chris was staring at him with raised brows, the kind he probably reserved for crazy people.

“Let me,” Chris said and plucked the wrapped muffin surely from his hands. Fingers, of course, had to rub together, and Zach couldn’t tell if his cheeks were heated from that or Chris opening the thing within three seconds.

“Thanks,” Zach mumbled, then torn off a chunk from the top. 

Chris only gave him a knowing smile, and Zach couldn’t look at it for too long. 

“I’m not here to arrest you, Zach.” 

Zach shoved another chunk in his mouth and hummed an  _uh-huh_. 

“No need to be nervous.” Chris leaned forward, and again the smile was too easy. “So you said you had kids?”

Zach tried to swallow—what, was this for Child Protective Services?

“Two,” Zach said. 

“School age, right?”

Zach nodded. “Zoe is in sixth grade, and Anton just started first.”

Chris grinned. “First grade—life’s so much easier at that age. Does he like it?”

As Zach was left with the crumbly bottom half of his banana nut muffin, he wondered if this was how Chris interrogated five-year-olds. 

“He’s doing pretty well,” Zach said cheerfully, trying to sound like a normal parent. “Zoe is at an eighth grade reading level and curious about everything.”

“That’s good,” Chris awkwardly commented, then fiddled with the mug handle. “Parenting must be hard to manage on your own, especially as a widow.”

Zach was about to nod again when a part of his mind froze, registering the statement. 

Chris’ gaze flickered quickly to his, a moment of apprehension that might’ve played out if it weren’t for— 

“Hello,” Joey said from the bottom stair. 

There was a moment where he and Chris still watched each other, their gazes feeling magnetic. But then they turned their heads to Joey, who entered in clean clothes and a lion’s swagger.

Zach inwardly rolled his eyes at the obvious. 

“You must be Chris,” Joey said a few feet from them, and he held out a hand. “I’m Joe.”

Chris made a motion to get up as they shook their greeting, but Joey held out a halting hand and touched his arm. 

“Please, sit.” Joey leaned on the chair between them. “Can I get you anything else?”

Zach stuffed the last of the muffin in his mouth as Chris’ eyes took it all in. 

“Just some answers, maybe.”

“I’m all yours,” Joey said, slinking further over the chair. His Celtic cross fell out of the dark sleeveless t-shirt and dangled like a pendulum between his tattooed and toned arms. 

Chris’ eyes remained on Joey’s face, however. “You’ve been in a relationship with Karl Urban for the last ten years, correct?”

“ _Oof_ ,” Joey said with an exaggerrated huff. “Way to start with the sensitive questions!”

Chris raised his brows as Joey waved a hand. 

“We haven’t been dating the last six months.” 

“Which is why you’re in Pittsburgh?”

“There’s no place like home,” Joey said smoothly, perhaps too easily. 

Chris leaned forward. “When  _was_  the last time you saw Mr. Urban?”

Joey cocked his head, as if mentally trying to recall. “Hmm—in Los Angeles, I think.”

Zach snuck another muffin with his fingertips and tried to discreetly open it. 

“You think?”

“Well, I was out there for a photo shoot. He followed me out, we broke up, and then we saw each other a few times in passing.” Joey made an aggrieved sigh. “I don’t know, he was a bad mistake—I try to block it out.”

At the fifth attempt of opening the wrapper discreetly, Chris held out his hand.

“Did you two have an altercation?”

Joey looked hesitant, although not in a Joey-way that Zach could pinpoint. 

“He gave me a shiner, yeah.” Joey looked down, picking at his hands. “ _That_  was the last straw. I left him behind, and I’ve tried to stay away from him ever since.”

Chris opened the wrapper smoothly, then handed it back—Zach was pretty sure he was being ignored like the idiot younger brother in this equation, and he took it sheepishly. 

“So you haven’t seen him since?”

Joey shook his head. “Not since I left LA.” 

“When was that?”

Joey made a thinky face and Zach blurted out, “That Tuesday night.”

Eyes whipped towards him, and Zach stuffed as much muffin in his mouth as he could muster. 

Chris turned in his chair. “You were with him?”

Oh,  _that_  was nice. Of course Chris hadn’t connected those dots. 

“Um—“

“I called him,” Joey interrupted. “About the shiner and Karl. He came out to get me because I was upset, that’s all.”

Chris folded his hands on the table, and no matter how much Joey leaned over he was still staring right at Zach. 

Who had nothing left in his hands. 

“Zach, did you see Karl?”

 _No._  “Yes.” 

Zach wanted to clamp his mouth shut, but the words kept tumbling out. “I went to get Joe, and we saw him on the way out.”

Joey was staring at him now— _truly_  staring. In the way a snake might hiss before killing someone slowly and with pleasure. 

Chris tapped the table. “Did he say anything to you?”

 _No._  “Not really.”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “So he was there when you left?”

 _No._  “We walked away rather quickly.”

Well, that was better than saying they were abducted and held at gunpoint. 

“Where did you go?” 

Joey stood up. “We came here.” He looked over at Zach. “Directly here.”

Zach closed his mouth, then bunched the wrappers together in his hands. 

But Chris honed right in on Zach. “How did you get here?”

“Plane—“

“Drove,” Zach answered, then winced mentally as Joey went to the coffee pot and loudly got out a mug. 

“All the way across the country?”

“Yep,” Zach answered to the table. He didn’t even want to look at Chris now. “That’s what you do when you love each other.”

Which was maybe the safest thing he’d said in the last half-hour, as Chris finally went quiet.

Blue eyes looked towards the spell parlor, where windows were clearly visible to the front yard. 

“Is that your car out there?”

Joey leaned against the middle kitchen isle with his cup. “Yep.”

Which sounded reasonable enough to Zach, until—

“That car is still registered to Karl Urban.” 

Zach wanted to rewind the day—maybe rewind all the way to Midnight Margaritas. But all Joey said was, “Yep. The asshole owed it to me.” 

“Still vehicular theft.”

Joey shrugged. “Karl never came back for it.”

“So he knows you took it?”

Joey opened his mouth but Zach rushed out, “I did.”

Perhaps it was best if Joey went and got the duct tape now. 

Chris scrunched his brow. “ _You_  did?”

“Well, he—I—we—“ without the wrappers, Zach would embarrassingly talk with his hands. “He kind of made me drive.”

“Made you?”

“He abducted us.”

Surely this was a form of stress-induced tourettes. 

“He  _what_?”

Chris was leaning far across the table now, the eyes too trusting and insightful, and Zach found himself draping the distance. 

“Well—no.” Zach tried to finish, but had to tack on, “He made us drop him off near the hotel, and then we drove home.” 

Chris looked skeptically between the two of them, and Zach was suddenly very sure that he was going to jail. There was no way in  _hell_  this story made sense. 

But instead Chris finally looked at Joey. 

“And that was the last you saw him?”

Joey sipped his cup. “Yep.”

Chris looked out the windows again, and Zach wondered what the man was thinking. Probably that they were crazy—that  _Zach_  was crazy, at least. 

But instead Chris sighed and got up from the table. “Thank you, both of you.” 

Zach didn’t follow—this was probably for the best. 

“Mind if I look around? I’d like to glance at the car, too.” 

“Sure, go ahead,” Zach answered, just as Joey had opened his mouth.

Chris smiled. “Thanks,” he said, then proceeded into the living room. 

When his back was turned Joey mouthed  _What is WRONG with you?_. Of which Zach only mouthed back  _I DON’T KNOW_ , and put his head miserably in his hands. 

***

That, of course, had not been the last of the investigator. While Mr. Pine had come and gone from their house without much hint of trouble, he seemed to pop up everywhere Zach went—from grocery shopping, to taking the kids to school, to driving home from work. His blond head was immediately visible from a crowd, as he used his charm and good looks to get whatever information he wanted. 

Zach could see him from the shop windows as he interviewed folks at the farmer’s market.  _That_  was something to imagine—what people were probably saying about the Quintos, or maybe about Zach in particular.

If the man didn’t think he was strange before, he was going to get confirmation soon enough. And maybe once he did, perhaps he would  _leave_. The week of him meandering around was already anxiety-inducing, causing Zach and Joey to snap at each other with their last nerves. There was the worry he would show up at any moment, maybe taking both of them—and what would happen to Anton and Zoe without Mama and Auntie Marie?

But Zach hadn’t heard a peep from them. He wanted to think they were on a beach somewhere, perhaps smiling, instead of still being pissed at the both of them. The image was pleasant, caused the veins in Zach’s forehead to pop a little less. 

It was inevitable, however, that he would talk to the investigator again. Zach braced himself for days afterwards, pouring himself into work at the shop. Zoe and Anton helped marginally, the truce between him and Zoe tenuous at best; one that most likely wouldn’t be eased until her Grandma and Oma returned home. 

But after a week, neither of them did. Zach would be worried, except he had other pressing matters. 

“You know, according to half the people in this town—“ Chris started once the bells on the shop door had stopped ringing. “You’re either worshipping the devil, or you  _are_ the devil.”

Zach didn’t turn around, more focused on placing the oil bottles in his arms on the correct shelves. “I’m not exactly surprised.”

“What, so you make herbal remedies. Last time I checked, all sorts of people did that.”

Zach pursed his lips. “True.”

“And you live in a big, colonial house and grow your own herbs. Lots of other people do that, too.”

“Also true.” Zach went to a cart of canisters and bottles, pushing it to another end of the store. 

There was an exasperated sigh behind him. “But that doesn’t mean you actually fly on broomsticks, or eat people’s children or anything.” 

“Nope,” Zach said casually, picking up a glass canister of mint.

“Good.” There was a scuff of shoes on linoleum. “But it’s just— _strange_. All these stories about your family.”

“We’ve lived here a long time.” Zach shifted to another shelf. “We’re from an old line of witches, so hyperbole was bound to enter the picture eventually.” 

There was a moment of silence, and Zach couldn’t help but glance behind him. When he saw Chris gaping at him, hand halfway to picking up a lotion tester, Zach smirked. 

“You heard correctly, Mr. Pine.”

“It’s Chris, and I’m not really sure I did.”

Zach walked towards the small table of lotions, using the moment to take visual inventory. “What are you confused about?”

“Just— _witches_?”

Zach stopped fiddling with the bottles on display and took a moment to nod. “Yep.”

“I thought there weren’t male witches. Like, they’re warlocks or something.”

Zach sighed. “That actually originates from an offensive term in Old English—means ‘oathbreaker’ or ‘deceiver’.” Zach smiled. “I’m not exactly either one of those.” Although cavorting with the enemy probably  _would_  count with some people. 

Zach moved to fiddle with another display and Chris followed. 

“So, you’re all witches? Joe too?”

“Yep.”

Chris took a moment to think that through. “I’ve met some Wiccans.”

“Good for you.”

“It’s not that bad. Nature worshipping, right?”

Zach made a face. “We’re a little bit different. Wicca originated in the 1940s from England. We’re farther back than that.”

Chris frowned. “I don’t get you.”

Zach sighed, leaning against the table. “Not to regale you with my family history—“

“I’m kind of asking.”

“But there are older traditions in Europe. Passed down from person to person. Very secretive.” 

Chris mirrored his leaning. “But these aren’t Wiccans?”

Zach shook his head. “Wicca is based off bits and pieces of the past. There was a man named Gerald Gardner who in 1939 claimed to have been initiated into the older tradition, and he basically used that to create Wicca. But  _us_ —“ Zach motioned behind him where, metaphorically, his house would be, “we’re one of those that predates it. We have grimoires dating back hundreds of years—“ At the confusion on Chris’ face, he corrected himself. “ _Spell books_. Basically handwritten instructions on the craft.” 

Chris looked hesitant. “So you’re saying you’re like the Salem witches?”

Zach motioned a  _so-so_  with his hand. “We’re not related to them, and historically a lot of them weren’t actually witches. But… yeah. We’re a long line of herbalists. I probably do have something in common with the cunningwomen who were midwives and nurses, actually.”

Chris quirked a lip. “ _Cunningwomen_. You’re like this town’s cunning… man?”

Zach grinned. “I don’t like the word, but yeah. I’m half-Irish, you can blame them for that terminology.”

“What’s your other half?”

“Italian, from my father. Who was a Catholic.”

Chris laughed at that, his white teeth flashing as he settled into a smirk. “He didn’t try to burn your mother, did he?”

Zach shook his head, smiling stupidly. “ _Nah._  Joey and I were baptized Catholic, actually. She was allowed her own thing—which he didn’t quite understand, but tolerated.” Zach paused at a sudden memory. “My great-grandmother on his side is actually a  _strega_ , combining her family’s craft with Catholicism. Happens a lot with the old traditions. Although with my grandmother and father, it didn’t trickle down very well.”

Zach watched Chris’ expression. He was concerned at first that he had bored him, but saw that Chris was listening intently. 

“My maternal grandmother brought it over from Ireland and settled here in the 1920s. And, well—we’ve been here ever since.”

“And you mostly use… the craft? For herbs.” Chris looked at the walls lined with canisters, some darkened for light tolerance, but most of them clear and showing dried leaves and flowers. 

Zach pressed his lips together, feeling a sudden need to go back to his cart. “Something like that.” 

There was a pause as Chris nodded, then casually glanced around him. He settled on perusing the other wall of herbs. “So you don’t use magic?”

Zach shrugged, picking up a canister of rose buds. “Magick is essentially a witch’s form of prayer. When I put things together, create a remedy for someone—some of that is combined with my faith.” Zach glanced behind him, spying Chris by a stash of dandelion. “But it’s not like, a laying on of hands or anything.”

“More a practical form of magic?”

Zach could deal with that. “Sure. It’s just… really about the intent.”

Chris’ fingers hovered above several glass canisters, reaching the end of a row of Cs towards the Bs. “Intent is an interesting word.”

Zach hesitated a moment, then continued with something he rarely expressed. “I think there’s this perception that magick is inaccessible, foreign—something that only people of a certain stripe can perform.” He straightened a container of red cedar. “Or mythical.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m not one of those people, Zach.” Chris was bent over, glancing at a lower row. “I’m not sure about homeopathy either, to be honest.”

“A lot of people feel that way. But we all believe in something.” 

Zach leaned against his cart as Chris straightened, clearly looking displeased.

“Hate to break it to you, but I’m agnostic.”

“That’s nice, but that’s not exactly what I’m referring to.”

Chris walked slowly towards him, his head tilted. “This is another witchy thing, isn’t it?”

When he got closer Zach met him halfway, fighting off a smile as he pointed to the lapel of Chris’ blazer. “Excuse me Officer, but I think I need to see your badge.” 

Chris narrowed eyes at him, studying his expression. But after a moment he reached in and pulled it out, allowing Zach to take the badge from him with little resistance. The gold star still shone under the fluorescent lights, beautiful with its tarnish and years of use and dedication. Zach grasped it with both hands, his fingers idly touching the points, and allowed himself a small smile. 

“I think the last time I saw anyone that pleased with it was my mother, after I graduated from the academy.”

Zach looked up, seeing Chris curious with a raised brow. 

“Even blessed by your mother—this is indeed special.” Zach turned it carefully in his hands, then held it up to face Chris. “In magick, we’d call this a talisman. But it’s really just a symbol—a simple star. But it represents something you fiercely believe in, this idea of justice and finding the truth.” Zach handed it back. “Your badge—it really can’t stop criminals on its own, can it? But it gives you the power to do just that, because you believe it can.”

Chris stared at it a moment, gingerly caressing an edge as he took it back. He swallowed before seeming to regain his senses, then tucked it away. “Never thought of it in that way before.”

Zach gave him a coy smile. “Guess you could consider it a practical form of magic.”

Chris huffed a laugh, “I guess so.”

Zach liked that easy turn of lips. And admittedly, that laugh was a wonderful sound. Even better was the look Chris gave when something occurred to him, his tongue darting out to nervously swipe the corner of his mouth. 

“Say, I’ve got a question.”

Zach raised an amused eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Let’s say I just walked into your shop—“

“A rarity when I’m closed, but go on.”

“And I told you I had some intense insomnia.” Chris watched him closely. “What would you prescribe me?”

The answer rattled off Zach’s tongue easily. “Valerian root.”

Chris looked along the walls, and Zach eventually pointed. “It’s down there, third shelf.”

The easiness of the previous moments seemed to quickly dissipate as Chris kept asking questions. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“It’s a mild sedative. You can make it as a tea, or you can buy it in capsules or drops.” Zach didn’t follow, but saw Chris looking at the clear canister. “You can’t really overdose on it, so it’s the first thing I prescribe. The worst that can happen is stomach cramps.”

Chris nodded, straightening once he was done peering down at it.

Zach leaned against his cart once more, looking for a clear baggie. “If this supposed ‘insomniac’ would like a sample, he could also come in at any time and get one—free of charge.” 

Zach had meant it kindly, but when Chris looked up he appeared mostly agitated.

Chris pointed at the canister. “This supposed insomniac would really like a sample, please.”

“Not a problem.” Zach opened the small baggie, squeezing the edges with two fingers so the mouth of it formed an  _O_. But when Zach moved in front of Chris and was abruptly avoided with a step back, it was then that Zach confirmed his  _off_  vibes. Although over what, he wasn’t quite sure

“Here you go.” Zach sealed it and handed it over. 

“Thank you.” Chris looked down at the dried chunks of root, feeling them with fingers through the bag. 

“You make a tea with them—with a tea ball.” Zach moved towards the counter and grabbed a small one from a holder. “Place a few pinches between the mesh cage here, submerge in hot water for five minutes, and you should be good.”

Chris looked down at both objects, swallowed, then looked up sharply. It almost made Zach take a step back from the abrupt and obvious change in mood. 

“I need to ask you further questions at a later date,” Chris said, eyeing him steadily.

Zach nodded. “Sure?” Although he thought he had been doing just that ten minutes ago. “Come by tomorrow morning, at eight?” Zach laughed purposefully, trying to lighten the mood. “The kids will be making pancakes, and Joey will just eat all the hard work if nobody intervenes.” 

But instead of smiling like Zach wanted, Chris only nodded back. “That’s fine.”

They exchanged another look—one that Zach wished he could pinpoint—before Chris walked away from him, opening the door to the shop. 

The bells clanged together as Chris turned and said, “Have a good evening, Mr. Quinto.”

And before Zach could wish him the same, Chris closed the door and exited the shop, turning left towards a known area of tourist motels. 

***

Strangely, Zach wasn’t any more nervous about Chris’ arrival than he’d been in the past week. There was a part of him—an acceptance now—which felt he was likely living the last moments of an old life, about to be turned over to the new.

“Dad, what’s this?” Zoe asked, helping to organize leftover herbs from the shop into the spell parlor. 

Instead of the valerian root she was supposed to be handling, there was a small leather journal in her hands. 

Zach bundled lavender together with twine and quirked an ironic lip. He had been about Zoe’s age when he had finished that version of his book of shadows. 

“An old journal of mine.”

She fingered through it, and Zach had no qualms with that. She probably recognized some of the spells—maybe surprised by others. 

“You did a love spell?”

He faltered in hanging the dry bundle and almost dropped the entire batch in his right hand. There was something tugging in memory, although he couldn’t quite place it. 

“’I wish for a love that I can’t resist… someone so perfect, they can’t exist’,” Zoe read verbatim, and that triggered the memory for him. 

The light of the full moon—the pain him and his mother still had over Pop. Joey meeting him on the balcony. 

Zach turned around, seeing Zoe scan the page from twenty years ago. 

She looked up eagerly. “Was this about Papa?” 

Zach looked down at the herbs on the table, wanting to twine another batch of lavender. But instead he shook his head—he couldn’t lie to Zoe. Besides being cruel, she was always clever enough to tell. 

“No, babe,” he said regretfully. What a story that would’ve been—although the damage of the love spell would’ve been his own, and would’ve perhaps only made the eventual end only worse. 

Zoe nodded. “I guess Papa’s hair wasn’t ‘like hay’.” 

Zach gave a small smile. “No, it wasn’t.” It had been dark like the night, and Zach had loved combing his fingers through it. 

The pain wasn’t as poignant as it had been. The sting in his chest still there, but easing with acceptance over time. Zach imagined he’d always love Eric, and would always miss him—but he was 31 years old. Eventually human nature would catch up with his grief and help him move on. 

As Zoe contemplated the pages, Zach went back to tying some other herbs. With the twine they made little broomsticks of sorts to be hung up, simple but symbolic. Mama liked them for the fireplace, using them to honor the Goddess Brighid—she would hang these bundles on hooks for her altar, only to burn them every New Moon in a sacrifice. It was his mother’s way of honoring family, of making sure they all stayed safe and together in their home. 

“Dad?” Zoe interrupted again, and Zach looked up from a bundle of chamomile. 

She closed the book and put it back in a drawer of writing supplies. She said quietly, “I bet that man is still out there, you know. The one with the yellow hair.” 

Zach leaned on the table. “I suppose he is.”

She turned around to look at him, gathering a bagged bundle of sage. “I bet he’s really nice.” Zoe looked up, and an unexpected small smile was on her face. “I hope you meet him soon.” 

Zach bit his bottom lip, watching as she went back to placing herbs in their proper compartments. He wanted to say a soft  _Thank you_ , but instead he whispered, “I love you, Zo.”

The words hung in the room, but he knew she had heard them. The silence was further proof of an acceptance that they would be okay. 

***

Zach was up at seven, going to the garden to cull the last of the autumn herbs and flowers. Someone had to do it—and maybe after today he wouldn’t be around to continue the tradition. 

Not that Zach thought he’d be led away in handcuffs, but Chris kept coming around for a reason. Maybe that reason was only building a case against him, and he shouldn’t be so calm with the athame pruning lovage and angelica in their wilting splendor. 

He put them in separate canisters, not quite aware that he was being watched. 

“Which ones are you gathering?” 

Zach didn’t turn his head at Chris’ voice, instead opening another container for sunflowers. “Well, I just did angelica and lovage. Gathering seeds now for next year.” 

He finished doing so in silence, the idea of being observed not entirely disconcerting. His children weeded that discomfort out of him—Zoe being the worst in her younger years, quiet and practically unblinking. But now she was set to be an excellent herbalist herself, so he supposed it had paid off. Maybe she would tend the garden when he was gone.

Zach gathered the containers, standing to turn and see Chris in a white t-shirt and jeans. Not dressed in the way Zach expected, and even more so, not with the soft look in his eyes turned towards him, so different from their last meeting.

“Want help carrying those?”

Zach wordlessly nodded, handing over the sunflower seeds. 

They walked to the spell parlor, passing the empty kitchen, where Zach finally noticed the clock—8:30. 

“Sorry. I got lost in time out there, I guess.” 

Chris waved a hand. “No worries. Zoe told me where you were.”

Zach nodded. “Are her and Joey still watching cartoons?”

“Yep—and making our pancakes, I guess?” Chris placed the canister down gently. “Although I think they were eating the batter more than mixing—or perhaps that was just the homemade syrup. Anton said it was made of crushed berries and herbs.”

Zach placed his canisters on the table, mildly impressed that Chris remembered their names. “He’s kind of impossible.”

“They’re great, Zach. Zoe was very gracious.”

Of course Zoe was—Zach never worried a moment about her. “I think she’s going to be a politician or diplomat someday.”

He bent over for a crate of jars, pulling them up to set on the table. They were all organized and labeled, filled with tiny seeds. 

“Yeah,” Chris finally said. “Although I would never wish politics on her.”

Zach cracked a smile. “You and me both.”

Chris peered curiously at the jars. “You guys are really organized.”

Zach shrugged. “Have to be. We’ve been growing here for generations—it kind of happened over time, I’m guessing.”

Chris looked along the alphabet, his eyes squinting to read the labels. “I’m not seeing some of the things you had at the shop.”

“Climate can prevent that.” Zach sealed the jar. “The northeast isn’t entirely forgiving. We keep thinking of building a greenhouse. The shop is doing okay, but it would save expense down the line to grow some stuff I usually import.”

“Like belladonna.”

Zach looked up sharply, seeing that Chris was still looking at the jars. 

“Belladonna is illegal in some states.” Zach pulled the crate abruptly towards him, and lowered it underneath the cabinets. “I don’t sell it at the shop.” 

Zach wouldn’t trust anyone with it, certainly. Anyone wanting it that badly could get it through other means. Thankfully possessing it wasn’t illegal, but the FDA didn’t endorse its use. 

“So how would you get it?” Chris asked, looking at a line of small drawers and cabinets, some with clear labels. 

Zach’s mind raced with all the possibilities, each one leading to the only one possible. 

“Internet or mail-order.” Zach put away his supplies, slipping the athame in a drawer. “But there are many substitutions, so most people just don’t use it anymore.” Except old-schoolers like his mother, of course. 

Chris nodded absently. “You have an impressive herbal collection here.”

“You’re in our laboratory, of sorts.”

Chris faced him, his arms braced against the table as he leaned in, giving Zach a pinning stare. Under any other circumstances, Zach could confess to himself how appealing the image was—how appealing  _Chris_  was. Close enough to meet across the table if Zach wanted to, but would not. 

Chris said softly, “Do you know where Karl Urban is?” 

Zach took a deep breath. “No.” Heaven or hell, one couldn’t guarantee these things. 

Chris smiled, a small smile—the one of some intimate knowledge that Zach would probably like to have. 

“I don’t believe that.”

Zach braced against the table himself, daring himself to lean in. “If you know where he is, then why are you here?”

“Because I’m pretty sure you, or your brother, did something to Mr. Urban.”

Zach felt something inside him break—the cage for a desperate animal perhaps, now wandering the edges of his mind for escape. 

“We did nothing but drive ourselves home,” Zach said lowly. “If you can somehow disprove that, then I’d really like to know.” 

Chris didn’t back down from his stare, but his mouth formed a wan expression. “The problem is—I believe you.” 

Zach blinked, unsure of what that meant. 

“But I can’t exactly prove that.” Chris sighed, the breath traveling the distance closing between them. “I’ll be honest, Zach—you have a case building against you, and it’s really convincing.”

Zach watched as Chris’ gaze traveled his face, seeming to settle on his lips. “But I would never cart you away in front of your children. Just… so you know.” 

Zach considered that a moment, gazing back with the same sort intensity that Chris laid on him. There was a desire to reach out a hand—cup the back of his neck, feel the fine hairs there—but this was not the time to do that. Maybe there never would be. 

Instead Zach leaned back, wiping imaginary dust from the table. “Well,” he said in a voice that broke the quiet. “You’re still invited to breakfast.”

Chris also stepped from the table, his eyes downcast as if mentally shaking himself. “I don’t have to stay—“

“Nonsense.” Zach tried to smile as he reached the doorway. “We’re having pancakes. Plenty for everybody.”

As Zach was about to head into the kitchen, Chris softly whispered, “Did you kill Karl Urban, Zach?”

Zach leaned on the doorframe, answering him earnestly. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

Chris gaped.

“Twice, in fact.”

And Zach left him there, walking to the living room to gather what possibly remained of pancake batter.

***

A lot did remain, surprisingly. Joey had been too engrossed in  _Scooby-Doo_  and in making the syrup to touch it, apparently.

“Not too much butter, Zo,” Zach warned from the other end of the kitchen, pulling down dishes for Anton to set the table with. “Then they’ll never cook.”

“I know, Dad—“

“Hey, Zoe,” Chris moseyed up beside her. “Ever seen a saguaro cactus?”

She frowned at him. “What?”

Zach wasn’t sure of this himself, but Chris took the spoonful of batter from her and went at it. 

“It looks  _kind_  of like this.” He dropped the spoon back in the bowl, and held out a hand to stop Zoe peering too closely. “It usually hangs out in the desert, but they’re making a special appearance in Pittsburgh today.”

Zoe watched with evident glee, then stood back in awe as Chris took the handle and flipped the pancake straight upward. 

Even Zach did a “ _Whoa_ ”—especially when Chris caught it deftly in the pan again, Zach’s kitchen none the worse for wear. 

“How— how did you—“ 

Chris shrugged, slipping the odd-shaped pancake onto a plate. “Magic, you could say.”

Zoe giggled at that one, then held the bowl as Chris dumped more butter and batter into the pan.

“Hey guys—“ Joey walked in, placing the syrup carefully in the center of the table. “Are you almost done? I’m starving here!”

“Chris is making cactuses!” Zoe shrieked, and Anton ran over to look.

“They look like hooks,” Anton muttered, confused.

“It’s a cactus with  _arms_ ,” Zoe huffed, then stared back at Chris with adoration. “They’re so cool.”

“Anton—set the table, please?”

Zach handed the dishes off, then grabbed silverware and napkins as he eavesdropped on the pancake crew. 

“My dad sings that song,” Zoe commented, and Zach caught the end of the hummed tune. “It’s by the Beatles, isn’t it? They’re kind of old.”

Chris flipped another pancake – apparently the last – and then searched for the buttons to turn the oven off. “Yep, and I’d say your dad has good taste.” 

Zoe beamed, and Zach wondered a moment if he should worry about that—until Zoe pulled out two chairs and instructed Chris to sit next to him. 

“Thank you,” Chris said, then whispered to Zach. “I think your kids like cacti.”

Zach whispered coyly back, “Well, usually our pancakes look like demolished moons.” 

“Okay, let’s dish up the guest of honor, first!” Joey said, throwing a few pancakes on Chris’ plate. “Zoe, slide over the syrup.”

Chris leaned back, protesting with a hand. “Really, I’m usually just good with coffee—“

“Nonsense, eat up—hey, Zo?” 

Zach was tied between giving Chris an apologetic look and glancing at Zoe’s wide-eyed expression. 

Joey held out a hand. “Zoe, the syrup, pass it—hey!”

Zoe lifted the ceramic syrup boat from the table and ran away with it—with Anton yelling and running close behind. 

Zach got up. “Zo?”

They all followed, reaching the outside garden which both kids ran passed—with Zoe shrieking with excitement as she threw the syrup boat into a line of trees.

“ _Zoe_!” Joey shouted in frustration, but gave up his pursuit at the garden bushes. “You goddamn traitor!” 

Zach and Chris both looked at him, then glanced at each other— where Zach was surprised by the look of anger on Chris’ face. 

His eyes were ice blue. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Zach shook his head. “I don’t, I don’t get what—“

“Berries and herbs, huh? Is that what you fed Karl?”

Zach still shook his head, not quite comprehending. “I don’t get what you mean—Chris!”

“ _’Bye Zach_. I’ll call if I need you for further questioning.”

“Wait—wait a minute!”

But by then Chris had already marched off to his car, slammed the door with a dirty look, and raced out of the driveway towards town.

Joey stood beside Zach and watched him go. 

“What’s that about?” Joey said, still slightly out of breath. 

It finally dawned on Zach and he gritted his teeth. “I don’t know.  _You_  tell me.”

Joey looked wide-eyed. “Why are you mad at me for?”

But Zach shoved past him with a glare, not missing a triumphant Zoe and Anton dancing in the periphery as he stormed into the house. 

***

“I don’t understand what the big deal is.” Joey rushed from behind, almost smacking into Zach when he stopped in the kitchen. 

“The big deal is that Chris—you know, the cop who could throw both our asses in jail?—is pissed off at us.” 

“So? He’s been on our tail all week. If he had something, he’d have done it by now.”

“Not true, Joe.” Zach resisted the urge to punch him. “ _Not_  true.”

Joey looked skeptical, crossing his arms. “Okay Zach, fucking enlighten me.”

Zach let out a hiss of exasperation. “He’s building a case, all right? Practically insinuated that he won’t arrest me now in front of the kids, but probably will later.”

Joey’s eyes went wide. “ _Excuse_  me? For what?”

Zach smacked around the pans, throwing them one by one in the kitchen sink. “What do you think?”

Joey shook his head. “There’s no way—with what? I don’t understand.”

Zach went to the dining room table and picked up the cacti, angrily throwing them into a bin. “He knows about the belladonna. He must have found it in the damn car.”

Joey rubbed a hand over his face. “ _Fuck_.”

“So you know what? I’m a tad  _pissed_ , because that all seems off the table now. You fucking do one of your goddamn  _spells_ , and now he thinks we’re both heartless criminals!”

“Wait a minute—wait a fucking minute.” Joey charged forward, pointing a finger. “ _I_  was trying to get him away from us, away from this damn house. I wanted him out of here— _gone_.” Joey sneered, getting into Zach’s face. “ _I_  haven’t been making friends with him.”

“Don’t you even go there—”

“I know he’s good-looking Zach, but— _fuck_.” Joey laughed. “Are you  _that_  desperate?”

Zach smacked a stack of plates against the table, hearing a strained crack. “That’s not it.”

“Well, you could’ve fooled me.” Joey looked straight into his eyes. “I bet if we had left him, you both would’ve gone all  _footsie_  under the damn table.”

Zach shoved him. “Shut up.”

“What? For telling the truth?” Joey held his hands up, staring wildly as Zach retreated to the kitchen sink. “You get all high and mighty on me, then get all offended when I throw it back?” 

“You’re such a selfish fucking prick,” Zach snapped. “I’m just trying to do what doesn’t get us both thrown in jail.” 

“Right,  _right_ ,” Joey crooned sarcastically. “Then go fucking do that, Zach—go fucking run to your  _boyfriend_.”

Zach whipped a towel at him, contemplating a mug next. “I fucking will.”

“Have fun, Zach. Have fun being a goddamn  _traitor_.”

“You’re using that word a lot today. Projecting much?” 

Zach spat the last out, just as Zoe and Anton walked into the kitchen.

“Dad?” Zoe said, looking around. “Where’s Chris?” 

Joey and Zach still glared at each other, with Zach taking a deep breath to not let his over-whelming need to  _strangle_  Joey show. 

“He went back to town, Zo,” Zach said lowly. 

“Where he belongs,” Joey growled between clenched teeth.

“What?” Zoe walked between them, turning to Zach. “You need to go after him.”

“Oh, he will Zo.”

She turned to Joey. “You don’t understand! That’s the man in Dad’s spell.”

She rushed towards Zach, just as both men diffused in confusion. 

“He has the hair, and the eyes, and can hum your favorite song—“

“ _Babe_ ,” Zach said, his mind still trying to catch up. “I know you like him, but—“

“He hummed your favorite song!” Zoe repeated, louder. “And he flips pancakes, and knows Spanish, and—and—“ her hands waved in front of her face, exasperated. “Dad, just trust me on this one, you need to find him!”

“Zoe, I’d hate to break it to you,” Joey called from behind her. “But Chris isn’t exactly our friend right now.”

“Not  _your_  friend,” Zach countered, “ _We_  were doing just fine.” He missed Joey’s death glare as he gently patted Zoe’s hair. “I was going to talk to him right now, actually. I promise I’ll find him.”

“Please, Dad,” she said, anxiousness clear on her face. “It’s important.”

“Run to him, Zach. Go tell him  _everything_.”

Zach made at face at Joey, but started walking towards the back door. “I love you, Zoe—Anton.” He grabbed his keys on a hanger, biting back that he’d be back later, for them not to worry. “’Bye, you guys.”

As he opened the back door he felt arms grab him from behind. Zach looked down surprised, smiling at the dark hand around his waist before he turned to hug Zoe properly. 

“You are so good to me,” Zach whispered in her ear. “Take care of your brother.”

She kissed his cheek. “Bring Chris back with you.”

He didn’t want to pull away and show his worried expression, but she knew it anyway. 

“Dad, trust the Universe for once.” She gave him a small smile. “Now  _go_.”

Zach swallowed, wondering when Zoe had grown up on him—but did exactly as she said. 

When he started the car and started to back up, he glanced towards the house – only Zoe and Anton were on the back steps, waving goodbye.

***

Zach had an inkling which tourist hotels to look for, but wasn’t sure until he saw Chris leaving one of the main offices. 

“I’m not talking to you,” Chris said, drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup as Zach rushed to catch up with him. 

“Please, I need to tell you something—“

“Unless you have a lawyer, that’s not wise.”

“I don’t want a lawyer.”

“Also not wise.”

“I waive the right to an attorney, dammit!” Zach spat, just as Chris stopped in front of his room. 

They were a mere foot apart, and Chris looked him up and down with a raised brow. “Why?”

Zach struggled to find the words, with none of the right ones seeming to come out. “I’m—I’m tired of hiding, I guess.” He said softly, under his breath. “ _Lying_.”

Chris had the key in the lock. “That’s nice.”

“Please believe me.” Zach reached out a hand, and on impulse touched Chris’ arm. “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m just trying to make it right.”

Chris looked away, contemplating a moment. But then turned the lock and gestured with an arm for Zach to walk in. 

“You still have the right to an attorney.”

Zach passed him. “And I still have a right to  _waive_  it.” 

As Chris sighed behind him and closed the door, Zach noticed the room was not that big—a single bed with a table and small bathroom. It barely looked lived in, except for the various papers and articles spread across a long dresser. 

Zach walked slowly to the middle of the room, and Chris crossed to the small table and set his cup down. 

“Well, let me grab my tape recorder,” Chris said, bending over to grab a duffel bag. “It’ll take a minute to set up.”

Which felt so  _official_. As much as Chris didn’t seem angry anymore, Zach still glanced around the room nervously. The future seemed to start crowding him in—panic started to crush his chest. 

Zach turned to the long dresser, begging for anything to distract him. There were a few photos, some bottles and clear plastic baggies. All looked like someone’s personal effects, laid out and categorized. 

It was a cop’s room, all right—which didn’t help the panic. 

Zach glanced at the photos, recognizing pieces of New York City. His eyes continued scanning, landing on a piece of folded notebook paper, handwritten words jumping out at him. 

Words that seemed awfully familiar.

 _Dear Joey -_

“Wait,” Zach said softly, picking up the folded paper. “These are all—” He unfolded it, the handwriting and words so clear. “This is my  _letter_.”

 _Oh Gods, oh gods. I am so tired. So tired. I cannot believe a human being can function on how little sleep I've gotten in the last two weeks. But then, every time I look at Anton's curls and his tiny finger wraps around mine, my heart bursts and sleep is the furthest thing from my mind._

“These were  _private_ ,” Zach growled, grabbing more folded pieces of paper. “I sent these to Joe!”

He turned—whirling on a Chris that was closer than he expected, the face apprehensive. 

“Zach—“

“How did you get these?” Zach waved them in his face. “Did you take Joey’s stuff?”

“They were at the hotel,” Chris countered, his voice calm. “When the department got called about Karl Urban’s disappearance on a hotel bill, they handed over his bag. It was considered evidence.”

Zach looked back at the dresser, and sure enough—a woven knapsack was folded towards the end, labeled and numbered. 

“Zach…” Chris started, his voice low. “I read them. I’m sorry, but I read them.”

Zach felt a breath stutter in his chest, the idea that—that Chris had known about Eric. Known about  _them_. The life he had idly led some five years ago, almost a distant memory. Known about all the times he had pleaded with Joey—talked about how they’d do anything for him. 

“Then you know everything,” Zach said quietly. “You know I’d do anything for my brother.” 

Chris’ eyes went soft. “I do.” He moved slowly towards Zach, swallowing before he said, “I have to admit I admire that.”

His body was too close—Zach’s skin hummed at the proximity. 

Zach looked away. “I need to make my confession.”

“I don’t want your confession,” Chris said, too close for comfort. “The only person in the LAPD who didn’t consider this case already closed was me. So get yourself a lawyer and then get the hell out of here.”

Zach narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean—“ 

“Ask me instead—“ his breath was a whisper on Zach’s cheek. “Ask me how many times I read your letters.”

Zach turned his head, their faces so close together. “How many?” 

“ _Dozens_  of times.” Chris watched his face. “They led me to Pittsburgh.”

“Chris, I killed—“

Their lips smashed together, Chris’ hand grabbing the back of Zach’s neck to bring them impossibly close. It was warm and sparking—a heat building in Zach’s gut as their mouths opened, rekindling a memory of what this felt like, what it felt like to feel desire. 

It had been a long time—Zach had forgotten so much of this. The way somebody felt as they leaned into him, crowding his space until Zach could think of nothing else. The hunger as Zach succumbed to a good kiss—someone possessing his mouth, his head tilted as Chris tasted all of him, fingers tracing his jaw. How thoughts flew from his mind as hands roved his sides, and Zach’s fingers itched to touch flesh—to grab and demand and explore. 

Zach reached under the white t-shirt as Chris hummed into his mouth, the angle causing their bodies to fall and collide with a wall. Chris braced an arm as Zach bent into him—his neck exposed as he leaned backwards, sucking in breath as Chris mouthed his pulse, a tongue tracing to collarbone. 

A feverish moment and Chris impatiently pressed him into the wall, changing the angle entirely, and clacked their belt buckles together. The sound was so jarring that Zach snapped out him, despite still parting his legs—despite still wanting the close proximity.   
.   
“We can’t—“ Zach licked his lower lip. “We shouldn’t do this.”

Zach pressed a hand against Chris’ chest, his fingers happily feeling the mucles there. But Chris stopped, panting for breath, eyes blown in mirrored desire. 

But after a moment of clearing his head, Chris raised his hands in surrender and backed up. “You’re right—you’re right. We shouldn’t.”

Zach looked at their feet, the toes of their shoes touching. He felt his body sway as he looked up, catching that heart-stopping blue gaze upon him.

Zach took a deep breath, his brain struggling to remember exactly why this was a bad idea. His eyes scanned those lips—soft and pliant moments before—and then saw as Chris nervously darted a tongue out, licking a chapped edge. 

Goddamn, Zach loved that. He wondered how it would feel on his cock. 

Zach threw himself forward, and Chris caught him as they tumbled to the bed, barely missing falling to the floor. Chris was on top, then Zach rolled him over, straddling hips as he pressed down, eager to feel if Chris was as desperate as he was. 

He had forgotten, too, this power that sex had over people. Zach wanted this so bad that his legs ached for it, his stomach like a dropped weight from a very tall building. He wanted the rushing and pain and discomfort so bad that he wanted to rip clothes off, wanted to smack bodies together and hear Chris grunt and moan out loud, all because of him.

Zach’s hands went under the hem of the white t-shirt and he impatiently whined, “Off—off!” 

Chris bit Zach’s impatient lips, then sat up to do just that—Zach’s hands quickly replacing cotton to caress the freckled and pale skin. It was soft and beautiful in its own way, the kind that showed bruises better. 

Chris threw Zach’s shirt off, and they both made hurried work of their jeans—convoluted and twisting, with Zach getting mad with a pant leg as Chris rolled him over, regaining the top. He mercifully palmed Zach through his underwear to make it worth it, and Zach’s eyes rolled to the top of his head, keening softly at the sensation of a hand finally touching his dick. But Zach sucked on Chris’ bottom lip, waiting for the moment of distraction—Zach wanted to torture this man, see him writhe beneath him. See Chris come because he was riding him, hips lifting as they both pounded into each other. 

But the moment Zach made his move Chris countered, and instead of Zach pinning Chris to the bed Zach was pinned to the floor, hands above his head as Chris moved between his legs, hovering above him. 

It was sweet surrender really, their cocks brushing together as Zach spread his legs wide. He heard noises pour from his mouth, heard Chris’ name babbled from his lips as they jerked their hips against each other, rutting helplessly.

Chris reached down and pulled them both out, and  _fuck_  it was perfect—Chris’ hard dick fisted with Zach’s, painful friction that would never be enough, but still making Zach come. He moaned loud as he came hard, the back of his head smacking the ground as his body shook. Chris looked just as lost and ridiculous above him, and Zach pulled him down for a rough kiss on the mouth, swallowing his moans as he felt Chris come across his stomach. 

It was so fucking dirty. But Zach felt lighter than he had in a long time, his heart beating rapidly at the dead weight on top of him, sweaty and gross—probably as sweaty and gross as Zach, who hadn’t even bothered to shower that morning. 

Zach panted, needing to breathe. He pushed a groaning Chris off of him, looking down at his chest—hair clumped and sticky. But as Zach motioned to get up to clean himself, Chris put out a hand—his eyes half-lidded as a damp lock stuck to his forehead. 

“Stay—talking. Later.”

That was good enough reason for Zach to fall backwards, pulling the motel comforter down on top of them as he drowsed next to the warm and slick body beside him. 

***

The light had shifted in the room when Zach finally woke up. Beyond feeling drowsy and sticky and gross, now his back hurt like hell from sleeping on the floor, and his neck cracked when he twisted it. 

But on the other hand, Chris was still lying beside him—also on the floor, also looking satisfyingly uncomfortable. As Zach shifted closer, Chris opened his eyes and mumbled an incoherent and gravelly, “Mornin’.”

Zach quirked a lip. “Close, but no cigar.”

Chris breathed deeply, blinking to look at the shadows on the wall. “Okay, afternoon then.”

They were naked and cold beneath the motel bedspread, and Chris’ goosebumps were rough against sensitive flesh. 

Zach stretched out an arm to grab more of the comforter, and he tucked it in around them. “We should probably get up.”

“Yeah.” Chris closed his eyes, grabbing Zach’s hip. “In a minute.”

Zach couldn’t complain as they stayed like that, wrapped around each other, undignified adults doing forbidden things. 

He recalled that the last time he had slept during the day was, well—back when he had been depressed. And even earlier, way before Zoe and Anton had been born. 

 _”Dad, trust the Universe for once.”_

Zach’s eyes flew open, meeting the lazy gaze of sky blue.

Zoe was right—too right. He had begged the Universe with good intentions, but the Universe had the sadistic humor to deliver it to him, regardless of that intent.

Chris frowned. “What’s that face for?”

Zach wrapped the blanket closer to him, sitting up. “We can’t do this.”

“Hate to break it to you, but we just did.”

Zach shook his head, leaning against the bed. “I mean, we can’t—“ Zach looked around for his clothes, then threw the blanket off. “You don’t understand.”

As Zach gathered his things, Chris aimed him with a skeptical stare. “What do you mean?”

Zach stood up, naked—spine cracking and back sore. But those things didn’t quite matter as much with Chris Pine also naked and looking hurt, still sprawled across the floor.

Zach put on a pants leg, wondering where to start. “ _Magick_.” He zipped himself up. “You’re here because I did a love spell when I was too young to know better, thinking you’d never happen and possibly exist.” He unfolded his t-shirt. “I’m really,  _really_  sorry—I didn’t think anything would come of it.”

When the shirt went over and fabric cleared from his vision, he saw Chris wickedly grinning up at him—not the upset or severe Chris he’d expected. 

Zach balked. “You don’t get it.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Chris sat up, his legs still wide open and beckoning. “You’re saying you’re running away because I’m  _exactly_  what you want.”

Zach slipped on his shoes. “Don’t be an ass.”

“Then don’t be obtuse.” Chris tilted his head. “Zach, you’re saying I want you because of a spell.”

“I know it is.”

“Then you’re not giving me enough credit.” 

Zach patted his pockets, searching. “It’s not a matter of willpower.”

“Then what is it?”

Zach huffed, looking at the floor near the dresser. “Okay—spell  _supercalifragilisticexpialidocious_.”

Chris looked up, taking a moment before his fingertips seemed to tick off the letters. “S-u-p-e-r-c-a-l-i-f– “

“I rest my case.”

“What, because I can  _spell_?”

“It’s a part of what I asked for.”

“Then you’re in luck.” Chris’ eyes twinkled. “That word may have won me the fourth grade spelling bee championship.” 

“Where are my keys?”

“ _Come on_ —this magic stuff is much more than just manipulating, isn’t it? Didn’t you say something about the power of intent?” 

A naked arm crossed into Zach’s vision. He looked up to see Chris standing in front of him, dangling his car keys as he wore only a wan smile. 

Zach had to remember to breathe. “Yeah,  _my_  intent. You didn’t have any choice.”

“ _Wrong_ , Zach.” Chris swallowed. “I chose to come here. Don’t I get any credit for that?”

Zach passed him, reaching the door. “Not when I called you here.”

“What, some twenty years ago?”

“’Bye, Chris.” 

“Wait a fucking minute, I’m not dres—“

But Zach closed the door behind him and bolted to his car—not running away, he told himself, but obeying the foreboding feeling in his gut.

As he started the engine and raced out of the parking lot, he thought,  _It’s for the best._

***

Zach pulled into the long driveway, the digital clock on the dash saying 4:34. It was almost a shameful number—not doubt Joey, and perhaps Zoe, would know what he’d been up to. He still walked stiffly and a bit funny, and if either of them noticed—well, Zach had no idea what to say. 

The feelings still drowned his chest, and he didn’t want to label them. Eric had been with him—some of the best years of his life—because of a love spell. The dilemma was that why would he ever choose to trap Chris into the same thing? That wasn’t fair—and certainly not  _love_. Not love given under someone's free will. 

He shoved open the car door, not anxious to go back inside. Joey was probably still mad at him—maybe more so—and Zach didn’t want to argue right now. What he wanted most was a shower and to lie in his bed, wondering whether he actually  _did_  need a lawyer, or if he could just blissfully fall asleep. 

He entered through the backway, closing the screendoor slowly before he ambled inside, hoping to catch no one’s notice. 

But instead Joey leaned against a kitchen counter, watching him.

Zach sighed. “Joe, whatever you’ve got to say, can it wait—“

But Joey met him halfway, an arm encircling for a wordless embrace. 

It was almost too much—in any other time of their lives Zach would’ve fallen to Joey just like this, telling him about what had just happened and how he felt. He placed his chin on a shoulder, wondering if he still could—closing his eyes as Joey rubbed a circle into his lower back. 

Maybe he could still have some semblance of his old life before it all went to hell. Maybe it wasn't over yet. 

But when he turned his head he felt a long, wet stripe of the tongue paint his cheek, the arms grasping him tight. 

“I  _like_  brothers,” Joey whispered, the cold breath skating across Zach's ear. 

The voice was foreign, the body smelling too much of alcohol and dirt—things he would never associate with his brother. 

Zach jerked away, and fists gripped his shoulders tightly. Coal-darkened eyes burrowed into his with a maniacal and dangerous stare. 

Zach tried to calm his breathing. “You’re not Joe.”

“ _Nope_ ,” Joey said, then grinned. “But his body will suffice.”

Zach shoved him in the chest, then smacked back with an elbow to break the grip. Joey coughed and fell into the stove, holding his chest as he sputtered a laugh. 

“You pansy  _bitch_.”

“ _I’m_  not the one stealing somebody’s body right now,” Zach said, putting himself behind the dining room table. “Talk about being somebody’s bitch.”

Joey growled, an exaggerated sneer of cartoon villains stretching his face. If it weren’t for the fact his brother was  _possessed_ , Zach would probably have laughed. 

Joey fell against the opposite side of the table, his lips pale and taunting. “Wanna fuck here? You’re ready—I can  _smell_  it on you.” 

Zach shoved the table with all his might, punching Joey in the solar plexus and making him unsteady. While Zach didn’t want to maim his brother, he grabbed a broom and smacked Joey down to the ground—a foot on his chest as the body was caught off-guard. 

Zach pressed down with his shoe, with Joey’s arms flailing as Zach aimed the broom handle at his throat. “Get the  _fuck_  out of my brother.”

“No way.”

Zach pressed harder, the boot precariously close to cracking ribs. “If you’re Karl, I swear to  _Gods_ —“

“Your brother was like a  _ragdoll_ ,” Joey wheezed, aiming Zach with a wicked grin. “I could throw him the fuck around, and he never said  _nothin’_.”

Zach pressed harder, but then remembered who he was hurting and eased off. 

Joey laughed. “You won’t kill me.”

Zach pressed again, but it was the truth. He swallowed the fear of how far they might have to play this—visions of blood and cracked bones playing in his head—while trying to remember everything he knew about possessions. 

Joey gave him a coy glance. “If you suck me off, I’ll  _think_  of leaving.”

Zach swiped the broom end, hitting Joey in the face with straw. He kicked a hip as Joey rubbed his eyes, smacking the top of his head against a table leg as Zach ran to the spell parlor, wondering if the lock still worked. 

There was a fervent moment where Zach hoped Zoe and Anton were outside, or that Joey hadn’t noticed their existence in the house. If Zach could lure Joey to the parlor, it could start and end there, with nobody else involved. 

Except when Zach skidded past the threshold he saw Zoe and Anton cowering under the table, clutching a shaking Noah between them, all guarded within a heavy ring of consecrated sea salt. 

“Dad!” Zoe yelled, yet clutched Anton and Noah closer. 

Zach shook his head in panicked silence—then made the split-second decision to run back out and lock the door.

“Dad!”

Zach turned around and saw that Joey had staggered upright again—and he was  _laughing_. Hell, who knew devils laughed so often?

“That was  _stupid_ , Zach.”

Zach had to agree—all the supplies in the house were locked behind him. And worse, now Zoe and Anton couldn’t get out if something happened to him.

But Zach stood his ground, his mind trying to recall all the shielding spells he had used in school. He imagined the wall of white light between him and Joey, powerful enough to keep the evil out. 

But Joey shook his head. “You fucking kidding me?” Then he barreled towards him—smashing through the white wall and throwing Zach against the door. 

Zach could hear Zoe pounding on the glass as Joey crawled over him, hands immediately going for his throat. 

“You’re  _taller_ ,” Joey hissed, teeth mere inches from Zach’s face. “Might wanna be  _you_  for a while.”

Zach felt a crowding of the brain, just as breath started to become scarce. Panic and adrenaline flew through his bloodstream, his legs kicking behind Joey as the devil’s hands pressed down, unconcerned.

The room was tunneling—Zoe’s voice becoming dimmer—when he heard a snarl above him. 

It sounded like a cat fight, the hissing loud and shrill. Zach tried to blink and focus his eyes, but all he saw was a dark whirl—Joey staggering backwards due the object near his face. 

When Joey fell against a counter and changed position, Zach saw that Joey was pushing against it—and that the object had long claws digging into Joey’s face and neck

Zach gasped as he realized who it was. “ _Siouxsie_.” 

Zach gained his legs back under him, looking around for a heavy object to help Siouxsie Sioux finish the job. He crawled to the cabinet of pots and pans, ripping open the door, only to hear a loud  _yowl_ —and a sickening thump and crack of a body against the wall. 

Zach swallowed the bile in his throat, standing up with an iron pan—his mouth dropping in horror as he saw Siouxsie Sioux on the ground, her body bent in an odd position.

That fucking demon cat—but poor Siouxsie Sioux. Poor, poor Siouxsie. 

Zach held the pan near his chest, strengthening his resolve against the grinning Joey across from him, separated by nothing but empty linoleum floor. Joey would never have done that to a cat, no matter the pain he was in. It only made the person across from him that more horrifying—and  _nothing_  like his brother. 

Joey lept at him, and Zach swung and aimed for an arm. And while he whacked and made contact, it made absolutely no difference—Joey still going for his throat, causing the pan to drop on their feet. 

Zach yelped in pain, causing Joey to grin as he pinned Zach against the counter, the edge digging into his lower back. Air was constricted again, and Zach could’ve laughed—there they were again, and this time Zach was  _really_  fucking screwed. 

Until a shoe hit Joey in the head. 

The pressure eased off his throat, and Zach fell to the ground as he heaved shallow breaths, blacking in and out. 

“What the  _hell_  are you doing?” 

Zach registered the voice, his eyelids fluttering as he fought for consciousness to see what was happening to Chris—his heart catching in his throat at what  _might_  happen to Chris. 

Joey seemed to find Chris amusing. “Well—never  _fucking_  mind. You’re prettier.”

There was scuffling as Joey rushed past him, and Zach fell on his back to see where he went. His blurred vision focused to see Chris backed against the dining table, pointing his gun. 

Joey kept rushing, and Zach prayed to the Gods that Chris wouldn’t actually shoot. 

“Stop, stop it right there—“

But when Joey moved with superhuman strength and kicked the gun out of his hands, Chris seemed to get a clue.

Chris stared dumbfounded, the impetus pushing him backwards. “The fuck—“

“What you gonna do about your boyfriend now?” Joey stalked forward, confident in his prey. “Think he’ll fuck you when I’ve got ya?” 

Joey made a grab for Chris’ arm, but instead Chris flinched backward and balled his fist. 

“Who  _are_  you?” Chris spat out, his posture taut and ready to punch. 

Joey quirked a lip, coy and wicked, before answering lowly, “Why, I think you’ve been  _looking_  for me.” 

Chris tripped over a chair, gawking. “ _Fuck_  me.”

“With pleasure.” And with that Joey raced forward—his feet too quick to avoid slamming into the raised chair in Chris’ hands, the wooden legs stabbing a shoulder and causing Joey to snarl in pain. 

It gave Chris a moment to move towards Zach. 

“Hey—“

Zach shook his head, looking at Joey regaining strength behind them. As Chris followed Zach’s gaze he positioned himself in front of him, a hand grabbing Zach’s as Chris became a barrier. 

The spirit was  _pissed_  now. Blood was caked and gushing from cuts along his face and arms, yet muscles strained so tensely that Zach worried they might burst from skin. 

Joey bared his teeth. “ _Fuck_  you both—and when I’m done, I’m fucking ripping apart those stupid children.” 

Just as Joey flashed forward, a thought passed through Zach’s mind. He squeezed Chris’ hand and yelled out, “ _Badge!_ ” 

And to Chris’ credit, he quickly remembered that conversation. He whipped out the gold star from his breast pocket, his talisman, and the metal caught the light. He held it out right in front of them, and glinted light became a white arrow in the darkness of Karl’s roaring spirit. 

A grotesque face burst from Joey’s head into a swarm of black dust. Just as Joey’s body dropped to the kitchen floor, a dark flash winked and snapped out of existence. But the dust remained as it fell heavy—the body a magnet as all of it reabsorbed and burrowed into the lifeless form below. 

Zach crawled forward, leaning over the feverish body as the last of dust disappeared in the whites of Joey’s eyes. 

“Joe?” He poked. “Joey?” 

Zach touched the sweat-sheened skin and felt Joey’s forehead, clammy and pale. Rolling Joey onto his back Zach could see his lips were moving, murmuring incomprehensibly, his body trembling and restless. 

Zach looked up at Chris, who was still staring with wide-eyed disbelief at Joey. His focus was only broken when Zoe rattled the door and called out again. 

“Dad?”

Chris turned and twisted the doorknob. He looked at the pinhole in the handle with confusion, before glancing back at Zach. 

Zach shook his head. “Use a bobby pin from the drawer.”

“Don’t worry Zoe,” Chris said, fumbling through a kitchen drawer. “We’ll break you out of there.”

“Chris?”

Zach turned back to Joey, letting Chris reassure Zoe and Anton in the background as he analyzed his brother.

It wasn’t good.

Not only did Zach clearly see the dust get soaked back into the body, but it also seemed to grip Joey more fiercely. Whatever that flash was, it was if it took consciousness with it, the dust an anchor for whatever evil touched his brother. While it left no visible mark or stain, Zach felt the negative vibes like an itch beneath the skin. 

Zach got to his knees, feeling sore, but bent over the body. 

“Joey,” he whispered, “Come back. Come back to us.” He lightly slapped a cheek. “Fight him off. Kick him out of your life for good.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

Zach looked up, meeting Chris’ concerned gaze. There was a moment when a part of him wanted to crumble to the worry—let Chris know that this was freaking him out, even as a witch. But instead he swallowed it and looked back down with resolve. 

“He’s still possessed.”

He heard Chris sharply inhale. “Shouldn’t we take him to a hospital?”

Zach shook his head. “He’d be on a machine forever and we’d never save him. Nobody would know what to do, except us.”

Except Zach had no clear idea either. 

Zach felt Zoe at his side, and when she leaned into him, he felt her trembling. “Dad, Siouxsie is dead.”

Zach swallowed, the emotions of seeing it happen hitting him hard again. Zach held out his arm for Zoe to fall into, but she shook her head, staring with fear down at Joey.

“He killed Siouxsie Sioux, didn’t he?” Her anxious eyes met his. “He killed a cat.”

Chris looked at confusion at the lot of them, but Anton burrowed under Zach’s arm, clearly understanding the danger. 

Chris shook his head. “I don’t—?”

Zach closed his eyes a moment, wondering how he could explain it. That while they weren’t ancient Egyptians, there was a certain level of awareness and respect. That cats were considered to have one foot in this world and one foot in the next, connected to the fairies—that they were a different level of spirit on the Earth, definitely set apart from Noah still cowering in the spell parlor. 

To kill a cat was to have no respect for magick at all—for everything that him and Joey and their enture family believed in. 

“It’s bad,” Zach admitted. And when he opened up his arm again Zoe fell into it, hugging him close. 

Anton tilted his face. “Dad, shouldn't we put Uncle Joey to bed?

Anton’s eyes were red and on the verge of tears again, and Zach’s heart clenched. 

“Uncle Joey is going to be okay, I promise.” He kissed Anton’s forehead. “Both of you were so brave—I’m proud of you.” 

“When you left, Uncle Joey went upstairs,” Zoe started. “We hung out watching TV, and—“ she glanced in Chris’ direction. “Well, we just watched stuff.”

“When did things turn weird?” 

Zoe gripped Zach’s shirt. “Lunchtime, maybe.”

Zach felt the guilt overwhelm him. He should have been here protecting them and watching out for Joey. Not making love— _having sex_ —with the guy who was going to arrest him. 

But Chris reached out a hand and touched Zoe’s shoulder. “That must have been really scary.”

Zoe turned to him, and Zach could read the nod without her doing it. 

She bit her lip. “He started walking around the house, muttering—it’s like he didn’t even notice us. He was pulling on his hair and singing this one song.”

Zach winced, having an idea of which one. 

Zoe looked to Zach, leaning over to squeeze Anton’s arm. “When he started to cuss and yell, I took Anton into the spell parlor.” 

Zach couldn’t help but hate himself in that moment. But he leaned forward and touched their foreheads together. “You did good, Zo.” He kissed her temple, wondering if they should have escape routes like fire plans—the next time there’s soul possession, Zoe and Anton to run far,  _far_  away. 

But he heard Chris hum in agreement. “You did a good thing by keeping your brother safe.”

Zoe turned her head against Zach’s shoulder and feigned a small smile. “Thank you.”

Chris looked at all them with a wan smile himself, and then glanced down at Joey. “Is there anything I can do?”

Zach and Zoe shared a glance, before Zach looked at Chris. 

“We need to move Joe into the parlor.”

***

Of course, moving Joey into the parlor meant coaxing Noah  _out_. And when they finally did, Zach sent Anton on the special quest of soothing him—upstairs and out of sight, where Noah would be far away from the dark and negative vibes in the kitchen. 

Siouxsie Sioux was a different matter. She was Auntie Marie’s cat, but Auntie Marie wasn’t home right now. So Zach and Zoe did their best, wrapping Siouxsie in delicate cloth and setting her in an old wooden jewelry box. Chris dug the hole, wanting to be useful, and Zoe said all the kind words. “She was a good cat,” being the only thing and the only lie, but Chris nodded, believing it. 

And after that was just… Joey. Who after an hour had not improved. The more the minutes passed the more that Zach was convinced that Joey  _was_  turning into a ghost—joining the realm of the evil spirit that had flashed past them, wherever it had gone to. 

Zach had no intentions of waiting for its return to figure things out. Instead he had Zoe set sheets and pillows on the parlor table, while Zach and Chris hoisted the body up and laid Joey gently down.

Chris remained on one side, Zach the other, while Zoe kept busy researching the grimoire. 

“Dad, I only see purification in here.”

Zach sighed. “Yeah, we don’t usually believe in possession.”

Chris glanced between them. “But he’s possessed, right?”

Zach nodded. “He was definitely not himself before. He would never say or do those things.”

“He moved too fast,” Chris added. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” Zach admitted, which contributed to the problem. “Generally speaking, ghosts don’t harm people and make them do crazy things.”

“So why this time?”

Zach searched his mind, analyzing the conversation that he and Joey had before he left. “I guess Joe was upset. Probably had his defenses down and Karl sprang in for the kill.” Zach looked sadly at the deteriorating state of his brother. “Ghosts only hurt you if you let them.” 

“And Joe let him?”

Zach brushed a wet strand of hair away from Joey’s forehead. “Maybe. I was going to confess to you and Joey didn’t like that.” 

Chris was thoughtful, with his face close to Zach’s leaning body. “He didn’t want you in trouble.”  
Zach glanced quickly up at him, but Chris continued. 

“You’re both so protective of the other, and you’re the one with kids.” Chris put tongue to cheek, hesitating to speak. “Did you know that Karl had a drug racket in New York?”

Zach sighed. “I’m not surprised.”

“He ferreted things between groups, and when he got injured he was more a storage entity.” Chris looked absently down at the body. “When he skipped the hotel bill and went missing, the department figured I shouldn’t waste time over a hit on a dealer—and an addict.” 

Zach brushed another strand of hair behind an ear and whispered, “Oh, Joey.”

“Joe doesn’t have a record—doesn’t have a record of being anywhere, honestly.” Chris huffed a dry laugh. “Try tracking  _that_. All I had was your return address.” 

Zach didn’t want to talk about things right now, but he did have to clear the air. “I’m glad.”

He could feel blue eyes on him, but Zach cast a glance to Zoe, who was still actively perusing the fragile pages of the grimoire. “Nothing?”

Zoe shook her head, then closed the heavy book gently with both hands. 

Zach quirked a wry lip. “Then we’ll have to improvise.”

“Dad, we don’t have three.” Zoe looked between him and Chris. “Anton is too scared right now.”

“Two is just as good—“

“Hey, I’m  _standing_  here.” Chris had a hand to his chest. “Look, I don’t generally believe in this stuff. But I saw him almost kill you guys earlier, and you’ve got to be joking if you think I’ll stand around.”

Zach actually hadn’t expected anything less—but it was a part of the witch’s creed to not invite outsiders, much less coerce them to participate. 

“You don’t have to,” Zach offered, one last excuse to get him off the hook.

Chris shook his head. “You’ve got me. You just—need to tell me what to do.”

“ _I’ll_  tell ya what to do.”

Everyone whipped their heads to the spell parlor door, where Auntie Marie was braced in the frame, skeptically watching the scene. 

Mama shoved past her and grasped Joey’s feet. “What  _happened_?”

Her face was twisted with anxiety, and Zach took a deep breath to calm the flood of emotions. 

“Mama, he—“ Zach swallowed. “ _We_  did a bad thing, Mama.” 

“No shit,” she hissed as she went to his side. “He looks half-dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I could feel it in my gut.” She reached out and touched Joey’s forehead. “It was eating at me that something was terribly wrong.”

Zach watched as Auntie Marie stood by Joey’s bare feet, arms crossed as she sighed.

“Margo, he’s possessed.”

“By  _whom_?” She said wildly, then turned on Zach. “ _Who_  did you bury in the garden?”

Zach heard Zoe scuffle closer behind him, and Zach wished on all the heavens he wouldn’t have to do this here. Not in front of his daughter, not with Chris across the table—not when things were so dire. 

But Zach took a deep breath. “Karl, Mama.”

“Gods, why didn’t you tell us?” She squeezed Joey’s hand and murmured, “I would’ve helped you bury the bastard.” 

Zach looked up quickly, seeing Auntie Marie also watching Chris’ expression. But instead the blue gaze met and held Zach’s own, giving off an intimate impression that Chris was far beyond taking statements and processing evidence, right now. 

But Auntie Marie held a guarded look and asked, “Who is this?”

Chris let Zach answer for him. 

“This is Chris Pine. He’s—he’s a friend of mine.”

“Well, tell your friend to saddle up. We’re gonna need to move Joey to the living room.”

Chris broke their stare to maneuver to Joey’s head, where he took shoulders as Auntie Marie took feet. 

Mama fretted as they moved him through the door. “Watch his hands!”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Gods, don’t call us  _ma’am_ ,” Auntie Marie snapped. “I’m Marie and that’s Margo, and I’m gonna lose it if you knock over that vase.”

“Watch his head—“

“I’m trying my best, Marie.”

“Where the hell did you come from, anyway? You have the coordination of a moose.”

“I train moose on the other side of the continent, actually.”

Zach smiled as he heard a huffed, “ _Cheeky_ ”, and they turned the corner to the living room. 

As he glanced at the bare table, he caught sight of Zoe out of the corner of his eye. She was watching him carefully, cradling the heavy grimoire to her chest. 

Zach held his breath. He knew that she had listened to that grown-up and unfiltered conversation, and that it likely begged a lot of questions. Hell, he’d keep his distance if he were her, too.

“I’m really proud of you, Zo,” Zach started. “You were really brave and smart earlier, and you’ve been a big help since then.” At that Zach swallowed, knowing he was truly asking for it now. “You deserve the truth, always. So if you… have any questions, I will tell you anything you want to know.”

It was precarious territory. But Zoe, his usual inquisitor, had followed the program so far without complaint. She was witnessing something unbelievable—traumatic, violent—an event she should go through her life without knowledge about. And yet, Zach had put Zoe through so much with the death of her father and his depression, that he knew that she was made of tough stuff—if anyone could handle it, it would be Zoe. 

But Zoe cast a look downward. Zach waited, watching for the apprehension to pass from her eyes. He wondered if this would be a moment she’d remember forever—an illusion broken about him, like all children experience with their parents, except this one she’d never show forgiveness.

“Dad, did you… did you really kill someone?”

Zach looked her straight in the eye. “Yes.”

And there it was. A part of his heart was already preparing for the cold shoulder, the rejection of someone he loved so much—someone he desperately needed to remain in his life. 

But instead she swallowed, glancing towards the parlor door. “It’s why Uncle Joey came back, isn’t it?”

Zach nodded. He knew she would connect the dots. 

But when no further questions came, Zach felt the need to explain himself. “I didn’t do a good thing, Zo. I just—I did what I felt I needed to do, at the time. And it wasn’t very smart, and it wasn’t right.”

Zoe only stared at him, and Zach wondered if she was slipping. If only he had the right words, the right things to say, maybe she would understand—

But Zoe grabbed his arm. “Dad, I’m not going to go out and kill somebody, don’t worry.”

Zach raised an eyebrow. “Well…  _good_?” As if he needed to be concerned about  _that_  now. 

“But we’re family and we stick together.” Zoe’s fingers slid down his arm until her hand entwined with his. “I know it’s wrong, but I value that more than anything.”

Zach had no idea what to say—had no idea how he could even rebuke that, knowing his life was a testament to her statement. But at that point Auntie Marie came rushing in, followed by Chris who honed in directly on Zach. 

“Okay, Zoe,” Auntie Marie said, rubbing hands together. “I need some salt, some broomsticks—and your Dad to come with us.”

Zoe dropped her hand and looked up at him, admiration reappearing in her eyes. It surprised Zach, but he was grateful—grateful that she still trusted him in any capacity. 

He nodded at Auntie Marie. “I’m ready.” And he was, for whatever was about to happen. 

***

Joey’s body was laid out in the middle of the living room, limbs spread, with a circle in sea salt traced around him. Zach had made it large, about three paces in each direction, and had dropped the salt in a counter-clockwise direction—the salt purifying, with the direction even more so. 

Chris watched as Zach kneeled next to Joey, his wariness apparent. But Chris stood with the others, helping to form a circle with hands and arms. They were six in total, with Anton deciding with Zoe’s encouragement to come join them. He held her hand and then Chris’ in the other, his face determined. Zach wondered what it was like, at six-years-old, to be asked to grow up so quickly in one moment—but he was also strangely proud. Zoe was also determined, her solemn face reminiscent of Auntie Marie giving directions.

“Don’t let go,” she said, squeezing Chris’ hand in one of hers, and Mama’s in the other. “The circle needs to remain unbroken. No matter what happens, we need to keep them in.” 

Everyone glanced at Chris, who nodded. “Got it.“ He took a deep breath. “No rushing in.”

“I’ll take the lead, and when I ask, everyone repeat after me.”

Zach looked down at Joey, knowing that much of what Auntie Marie was saying relied on him. They had decided that Zach would try to bring Joey back—they were the closest out of all of them, after all. Yet none of them had performed an exorcism before, and Zach was only going on a hunch and a prayer. 

Auntie Marie and Mama took a deep breath, then started in unison. “North, East, South and West—we call the God and Goddess to heed our request.”

Zoe and Anton joined in. “Wind, Air, Earth and Fire—we call you ‘round to hear our desire.”

Black candles were lit in the corners of the room, where the flames flickered.

Auntie Marie spoke loudly. “We are gathered here to cast out an unwanted visitor. Someone entered uninvited in our home and possessed our loved one, Joseph Michael Quinto.”

Zach saw Joey’s hands twitch as Mama repeated the name, and the group then spoke in unison—“Joseph Michael Quinto.”

“By all the Gods and energies of the Universe, we will not rest until this evil spirit is banished.”

Feet joined the hands twitching, and Zach leaned over to take Joey’s right-hand fingers to calm them in his palm. 

He looked where the scar would be, if Joey were anything like him. When Joey had first departed all those years ago, sometimes the only thing that kept Zach sane was picking the scabs—causing the blood brother line to be etched there permanently, for anyone who bothered to look.

Zach saw it indeed, the scar curled from the thumb and straight across. Zach held up Joey’s hand, matching it to his own, and squeezed their palms together tight. 

“Joey?” Zach said, leaning over to touch his cheek. “Joey, wake up.”

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight. By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“ 

Mama joined in, followed by a chorus that made the floor hum, raising the energy around them. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight. By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

The lights dimmed then blinked back on, just as Joey’s eyelids fluttered. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

There was a snarl that whipped through the room, and Zach was unprepared as Joey’s body bucked and threw Zach backwards. 

He kept their hands clamped tight, just as Auntie Marie spoke louder, regrouping the chant. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

When Joey’s eyes opened his head twisted, black shadows skidding across amber irises and turning them into night. He yanked their arms and Zach was dragged forward, almost falling on Joey’s chest that heaved and gasped for breath. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

Zach heard a crack above their heads. When Joey smiled, too wide and unnatural, Zach struggled to gather his wits. 

“ _Baby Brother_.”

A leg went around his waist, and with a growl Joey reached up and bit his neck, the sting causing Zach to cry out.

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

Joey rolled them over, and fingers rubbed slip-shod between their hands as Zach grasped for control. Joey’s other hand ripped nails across his cheek, and Zach couldn’t contain a hiss. He wanted to free his legs but Joey lay across them, a wicked grin knowing full well that Zach was helpless. 

“You are  _delicious_ ,” Joey sneered, then slapped Zach’s face and smacked his head to the floor.

“By the powers of might—don’t break the circle!”

Joey jerked around, and they both saw Chris’ arm yanked back by Auntie Marie.

Zach used the opportunity to knee Joey’s stomach, and the beast pushed off. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight. By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

Zach straddled Joey’s waist, bringing their hands to his chest as Joey spat at him and missed.

“Joey, listen to me—“

Legs and pelvis reared up, and Zach struggled for balance. 

“Listen to me, Joey—we’re supposed to be together forever. Live together, die on the same day—“

Joey opened his mouth wide, a soundless and pained scream that clenched Zach’s heart. 

But he grabbed Joey’s head and smashed their chests close together, their clenched hands caught between them. 

“Today is not that day, Joey!“ Zach yelled above the chanting. “Come back to us—come back to  _me_.”

Joey’s body went limp under him. After a moment of strange calm Zach chanced sitting up, pulling the body close to cradle Joey in his arms. 

It was then that Zach looked down between them, and saw the specks of black dust skid across lifeless and open eyes—then erupt in a volcano from his eyelids, his nostrils, his mouth. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

Zach watched in horror as the black dust crawled all over Joey’s face, then bridged to crawl along Zach’s arms and onto his chest. 

Zach squeezed Joey tight to him, seeing a building wall of black block the chanting and light around them, sucking them into a dark vacuum.

“By the powers of mi—“

“ _Joey_ ,” Zach whined in his ear, wanting to keep his eyes closed as the dust skidded up his neck “Fight him off—don’t let him take us!”

Joey’s mood suddenly flashed from lifeless to clawing at Zach’s back, as Zach struggled to hold them together and Joey struggled to rip them apart. His mouth screamed obscenities into the skin of Zach’s neck as Zach wouldn’t give up, would never let go.

Zach hissed as Joey scratched at his face and arms, drawing blood, almost making Zach lose his grip. He was almost grateful when Joey bit his shoulder, an impasse as Zach felt light-headed, about to fall over from his muscles taut in holding them together.

He prayed to everything he could—just a little longer, just enough—as another tear of teeth went down his throat as Joey sank against him, panting hard.

There was incoherent mumbling, then Joey whispered, “Let him take me—keep everyone safe, let him take me.”

Zach shook his head, then mouthed into the top of damp hair, “ _Never._  Your blood, my blood— _our_  blood. He won’t take you away from me!”

It was then that the wall broke and parted like the sea. Zach’s vision swam, but he watched as the dust skated across the floor, straight towards the circle of salt. 

Auntie Marie and Mama didn’t move as black kissed the circle, then started to singe and burn.   
“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

Building piles of dust couldn’t escape, the smell vile and dank as a whine erupted from them rushing and scurrying about. Smoke tendrils filtered into the air as they gathered, turning to cinders in their mad rush to cross the circle’s edge. 

“By the powers of might, pure evil take flight—“

The chanting felt louder as the dust obliterated to smaller particles, laying lifeless on the ground and dirtying everything, staining the light hardwoods. 

“By the powers of might—“

Another crack above their heads and Zach looked up—the flash of darkness suddenly in his face, as if staring him down.

Zach growled, holding Joey down as he glared and shouted, “You are  _nothing_. Go away!” 

Air was sucked out of the room as lights flickered and the chanting stuttered. There was another snarl and crack as the flash departed—chaos in the blink of an eye, and then calm in a winking second. 

Zach stared at the dusted circle’s edge, then looked up and saw everyone was staring back at  _him_ —the energy clear out of the room as Zach swayed where he sat. 

Auntie Marie held her chin up, then bellowed, “By the powers of might, pure evil took flight—so mote it be!”

Auntie Marie and Mama dropped their hands at once, then picked up the brooms that lay behind them. Out of the periphery, Zach saw Zoe do the same and hand over broomsticks to Chris and Anton. 

“Sweep it out!” Auntie Marie yelled, and to Zach’s amazement the dust lifted and billowed in the direction of the kitchen. 

He heard the back door slam open as everyone rushed to clear the dust—taking it out of the house and out of all their lives, forever.

When a minute passed, Zach looked down at Joey collapsed against him. There was a slight shifting, and Zach didn’t breathe until Joey squeezed their joined hands.

Joey looked up, looking woozy, but tried for a faint smile. 

“ _Hey_ ,” he said weakly, before his eyes closed again as he drifted in and out. 

Zach kissed the top of Joey’s head, squeezing him tightly, and wouldn’t let go of him until Mama dragged Joey away herself. 

***

Near midnight, the house almost seemed back to normal. While Joey had rested on the couch for a while, he was soon able to limp up their flight of stairs—joking and pawing off Mama as she followed his every move. 

“I’m not dead anymore!”

“You could be if you don’t hold the railing!”

“God _dammit_.” But Joey did as he was told, allowing Mama to pamper him in revenge for all the heartache he put her through. 

Likewise Zoe flitted around Zach, almost hugging him to death the first moment she was able to.

“You were so good,” Zach said, kissing the top of her head. “You and your brother are such competent witches now.”

Anton grabbed his legs from behind, melding to the point where Zach couldn’t walk, but could only stand there as his children assaulted him. 

“I love you Dad, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Zoe said, with face burrowed into his chest.

Anton muffled into his hip something similar, and Zach patted their heads, swallowing emotions that made a lump in his throat. 

He was so blessed—certainly  _felt_  blessed. And when it eventually came time for a late dinner and moving on, Zoe and Anton stayed close beside him, never letting Zach out of their sight. 

To Chris’ credit, he remained in the periphery. While Zach wanted to talk, he could see from Chris’ stunned expression that he needed time to think on it—process everything he had just seen. 

While he ate dinner with them, Chris went outside as Zach put the kids to bed. There was a moment of curiosity, but Zach put it aside as he lay in bed with Anton and Zoe, giving them that physical reassurance as they drifted off to sleep. It was quick as the adrenaline had shot and gone through their systems, making everyone tired, Zach included. 

But he resisted sleep. He tiptoed back downstairs in the quiet house to find Chris out in the yard, where Zach found him chain-smoking on the stoop.

Zach sat next to him, arms folded into his cardigan, as he watched curling smoke create a haze around their heads. The porch light made Chris’ thin white t-shirt obviously threadbare, his blue eyes grey in the darkness—avoidant and scanning the bushes of the garden in front of them. 

“I’m so confused,” Chris finally admitted, the confession a whisper between them. 

Zach had figured as much. The whole day had been one strange event after the other, everything unpredictable from one minute to the next. The only moment of peace had been within dreams—sleep that he had gotten while entwined to the man next to him. 

Their knees touched, and Chris looked over at him with a lost expression. 

“What exactly happened, Zach?”

Zach hefted a huge sigh, his gaze on the garden as he tried to find the right words.

“My brother was possessed by an evil spirit. You and everyone else kicked it out.”

Chris scratched his bottom lip with a thumb, looking off into the distance towards the trees. “And who was the evil spirit?”

“Karl Urban.”

“See,  _this_  is where you kind of lose me.” Chris waved a hand, exasperated. “Karl Urban is dead, and he decided to haunt  _this_  place?”

“Well I tried to tell you the reason, but you didn’t want to hear it—”

Chris got off the stoop, pacing a few feet away. He shook his head, staring disbelieving around him. “I can’t explain this.”

Zach raised his brows, unsympathetic.

“I mean, if I actually wrote this shit down on a report, I’d probably—“ Chris rubbed his bare arms. “I’d probably wind up in the damn loony bin.”

“So what  _are_  you going to write?”

Chris looked back at him, shocked. “What makes you think I’m writing it in the first place?”

“Because it’s your job. What you were born to do.”

Chris looked away, staring at the bushes again. Zach had no doubt where everyone had swept the ashes—had no doubt that Chris knew  _exactly_  where Karl Urban’s body was laid to rest. If Chris needed a nail in the coffin for his case, he had plenty of nails from this past evening—the confession to his mother was just icing on the cake. 

Zach swallowed, then asked in a soft voice, “When are you arresting me?”

Chris sharply exhaled—or perhaps it was a shiver—then turned to stomp out his cigarette on the stoop. 

“I have insufficient evidence to do so.” Chris threw the butt in a pail of garden scraps. “I c-can’t find a body, and I can’t really prove whether it was you or Joey who actually did it.”

“I did it, Chris. I put the belladonna in his drink and he took it from me.”

“Where’s the bottle?” Chris huffed a humorless laugh, his teeth slightly chattering “Let m-me guess—he took it to the supposed afterlife?”

Zach gave him a gentle look, trying to assure the obstinate stare. “We left it on the side of the road near Vegas.”

Chris threw out his hands, pacing away from him in agitation, his hands back to rubbing his arms. “Again, a  _thousand_  fucking bottles near the roads in Vegas.”

“But I can show you the right one.”

“I’m sorry, d-do you  _want_  to go to fucking jail?” 

“No, not really.” Zach eased from stoop, shrugging off his cardigan as he walked towards Chris. “But you shouldn’t do something you don’t want to do. 

Chris looked wide-eyed at Zach’s approach, rubbing his arms and folding into himself. But when Zach placed the cardigan around his shoulders, rubbing Chris’ arms through the heavy wool, Chris leaned into him and invaded space. 

“And I’m not d-doing what I want to do, huh?” Chris said quietly, teeth still chattering . “Since I c-can’t make up my own mind what that is.”

Zach looked into his eyes, the light grey now a storming sea. This all hurt too much—Zach didn’t want it to end this way, but something was breaking inside of him.

“It goes both ways, you know,” Zach started. “It’s not just looking out for you and what you want.”

“C-could’ve fooled me.”

“It’s about knowing that what you’ve got is  _genuine_.” Zach swallowed, feeling strange for never stating what he was about to say out loud. “Eric was a love spell. Not on my part, but Mama’s and Auntie Marie’s.  _They_  didn’t see anything wrong with it, but they never asked  _me_ —and they certainly never asked Eric.” Zach took a deep breath. “They never asked whether we wanted to uproot our lives and turn everything backwards and upside down.”

“But look all the beautiful things that came from it,” Chris said softly, tilting his head towards the house. “How could you doubt that?”

“I don’t. Not exactly.”

“But how would they have come into your life if it weren’t for you and Eric?” 

Zach was silent, not wanting to contemplate it.

But Chris continued, his arms snaking into the sleeves. “It seems to me you don’t trust  _Fate_ —or whatever it is you believe in—all that much. Maybe all these spells were meant to happen so you could be with him—and be with me.” 

Zach met Chris’ eyes, fierce now and arrowing his heart.

“You know I don’t believe in this shit—not really. I respect you, and think you’re intelligent, and I know that this spell stuff means a lot to you and your family.” Chris crossed his arms. “But what  _I_  believe is that I go where I want to go, and do what the hell I damn well please.” His face went soft and pleading. “Can’t you respect  _that_?” 

Zach wanted to. “But how do you know?”

“How do  _you_  know?”

Zach looked away, scanning the far off tree line—there was a time, so long ago, when Zach felt safe running into those woods. Running away to cry, to avoid what was happening. 

“Maybe I wished for you.”

Zach turned his head and saw that Chris was looking at the sky. 

“I wished on so many stars as a kid. My sister Katie and I were often in boarding school, with our parents too busy conducting business around the world.” Chris pointed straight ahead. “The brightest star, the first one I saw, every night. I wished to not be so lonely—I wished to have a real family.”

Chris put down his hand. “Maybe it isn’t you. But what if I wished so hard, wished for so long for someone to understand me—that it prompted the Universe to have you write a love spell, one that would come true?”  
Zach didn’t think it was likely—he had been seven at the time. But Chris looked at him with those blue eyes, ones that Zach had trouble lying to. 

“Maybe,” Zach whispered. 

Chris quirked a lip, yet it was a sad smile. “ _Maybe_  is better than  _no_.”

There was a languishing moment, one where Zach wanted to pull Chris close and taste him one last time. Feel the weight of him in his arms, feel his heart beating as they stood chest-to-chest. 

But instead Chris only nodded his goodbye and turned his back. Zach watched as he walked to his car—opened the door, turned the ignition, then slowly and reluctantly drove off. 

Despite the darkness, Zach watched until the vehicle was too far in the distance and out of sight. 

***

It was a restless and difficult sleep. Although there was an overwhelming urge to run in the middle of the night—knock on a certain motel door and fall into the arms of his beloved—after that first night, the pain became easier. After a week, the yearning became almost habitual. And after a month, the emptiness in his heart felt almost normal.

 _To Joseph and Zachary Quinto: Concerning the case of missing person Karl-Heinz Urban, the Los Angeles Police Department has cleared all charges against the addressed individuals. The case remains unsolved and open, with next of kin notified of any further developments._

 _All personal effects confiscated have been returned to you. If you have any further questions or complaints, you can file your concerns in writing at the return address._

 _We apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for you cooperation – Det. Chris Pine, Homicide, (323) 207-5268_

“Dad, when is Chris coming back?”

Zach looked over at Zoe in the spell parlor, where she stood at the table stringing together juniper berries for a necklace. The snow dusted the windows behind her, brightening the room with its late winter ambiance. 

Zach shook his head. “He isn’t, babe.”

This was the first time she had asked since he left, and there was a part of him surprised that she even remembered. 

But Zoe narrowed her eyes at him, a fierce look reminiscent of her aunt. “Why’s that?”

Zach opened a drawer filled with cloth sachets. “Well… some things just aren’t meant to be.”

He opened a pouch, trying to remember what spell he had been working before the interruption, with his mind fighting off images that had haunted him for months. The way a tongue darted out to lick his lips—Chris’ mouth lax and open and wet above him. Blue eyes bright in the morning as he stood in Zach’s garden—blue eyes that were grey and stormy before he turned and left for good. 

“That’s crap.”

Zach raised a brow. “Excuse me?”

“Dad, he’s the guy in your spell.  _Obviously_  it was meant to be.”

“Well  _obviously_  someone didn’t get the memo,” Zach countered, despite the untruth of it. While Chris had been pretty clear about his feelings before he left, he probably figured by now that Zach was never calling him back—that he should just give up, move on, and forget. 

Yeah, the memo had been practically etched in stone—but Zach had shattered it. 

“Like you?”

Zach braced his arms against the table. “I always appreciate your honesty Zo, but the attitude doesn’t have to be included.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying  _something’s_  holding up destiny.” 

“Well, it sounds like you have some funny ideas about destiny.” 

Zoe stabbed her stringing needle into a cushion, then looked straight at him. “You know what I think about destiny?”

Zach raised both brows, wondering honestly what an eleven-year-old’s philosophy might be. “Do tell.”

“I don’t think it’s just something that happens to you, where someone else is running your life. Not like some story that somebody wrote, and you’re just some person in it.”

Zach nodded slowly. “Okay, I think I agree with you so far.”

“I think we all make our own choices.”

“Free will, you mean.”

“Right,” Zoe said, looking confident. “There’s only so much the Gods can do, but we all make up our own minds.”

Zach leaned on his forearms, the first dilemma coming to mind. “What about spellwork, then?”

Zoe waved a hand. “You can’t make somebody do something they don’t want to. I mean, you put that charm in Anton’s room for cleaning, and yet he still trips over his toys all the time.” 

Zach balked. “ _I did not_.” Well, he did—but Zoe wasn’t supposed to know about it. 

She aimed him a skeptical look. “It still proves you can’t make him do it.” 

Zach made a face, but Zoe only looked smug. 

“Yet when you gave me that sachet out of rosemary before the spelling bee, I won first place. Maybe because I studied my butt off, but maybe because I also wanted it to work.”

“That’s the theory of magic in a nutshell, Zo.”

“But that means it’s not mind control. It’s just a tool to help get what you want.”

Which Zach thought was a great way to look at it, despite it disregarding all sorts of black magic. 

“Dad, I think you should just call Chris.”

Zach straightened up, thinking they should change the topic of conversation. “What about that necklace you’re making? Is it a general ‘tool’ for your health, or because you want Keith at school to notice you?”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “ _Dad._ ”

“ _Zoe,_ ” he taunted back, smiling as she threw juniper berries at him. 

But later that night, when the moon was full and beckoning and Zach went out to the balcony—perhaps he would admit she had a point, as he whispered words to the night sky.

“If it’s true love, he’ll come back soon—with own free will, ‘fore next full moon.” Zach opened his palms, full of rose petals. “If it’s not, then no harm done – smile on the past, our hearts open.” 

And with a gust of winter’s last wind, Zach let the petals fall where they may—some dusting the snow below, and others carrying his prayer on a current to far, far away.

***

Maybe it was true that Zach didn’t have much faith in things. He poked the awakening ground, feeling the first days of the spring thaw. The Earth was hard, yet the energy within held such promise. 

He worried about the tulips. Zoe and Anton told him they had planted bulbs down by the road, yet he saw none. And while the neighbors had red popping up through the snow, theirs had yet to erupt after the snowbanks had melted. 

There’d be pink, some yellow—Zoe’s favorite colors. But the problem was Anton just liked digging holes and not really following instructions. 

Zach frowned. He had half a mind to dig along the avenue and see if anything was even sprouting.   
“That’s a great face you’re making. It’s just how I remember you.”

Zach froze to the spot, wondering if the voice making his heart race was attached to the person he thought.   
There was a sigh. “I came all this way. Can’t I at least get a ‘hello’?”

Zach stood straight up, startled at the blue jean-and-t-shirt vision before him. Chris Pine seemed not to have changed one bit.

“You’re  _here_ ,” Zach stated, his mind not catching up with his mouth. 

“Yeah, uh—“ Chris smiled sheepishly, then pointed to the sweater draped over his arm. “Thought I should return this.”

Wheels suddenly clicked at why he couldn’t find it for months. Part of it had been that it was his favorite sweater—another that he was mad at misplacing it after certain events. 

Chris handed over the wool cardigan, and Zach loved the feel of it in his hands—loved that it was so obviously not laundered, but still worn and used. 

“You could have mailed it,” Zach blurted, although he preferred the personal delivery. 

Chris nodded slowly and begrudgingly. “Yeah, you know—funny thing, that.“ He ticked a finger absently towards the house. “Call me crazy, but I’ve recently had the distinct impression you wanted me here, even though you haven’t bothered to talk to me for  _months_.”

Zach moved closer, still slightly skeptical. “You might be crazy.”

Chris opened his mouth to retort—but then laughed, embarrassed. 

“So I was in the office one morning, and someone delivered roses to me by mistake.” Chris scuffed his feet on the pavement, leaning closer. “I saw the name, and found the right guy. But, um—when I saw him, he reminded me  _exactly_  of you.”

Zach furrowed his brow. “In what way?”

Chris’ lazy gaze swept from head to toe, and Zach felt his skin burn up. 

“Well,  _none_  actually.”

He reached out and put a tentative hand on Zach’s arm, fingers branding as they moved from elbow to caress inner wrist. When Zach didn’t shrug away, Chris drew him closer, another hand tracing Zach’s jawline. 

“Truth is—“ Chris leaned their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “Maybe when he said they were from Pittsburgh, I gave up trying to stay away from you.” 

Zach angled his head just right for the soft touch of lips, pressing gently for a chaste and beckoning kiss. A minute passed, a ghost of a breath shared between them, before Chris seized the moment and captured his mouth—desperate and impatient, with yearning to touch the other, lips sealing the old and blessing this new thing they’ve begun. 

Zach pulled away first, their foreheads still touching as he confessed, “I can’t believe that actually worked.”

Chris smiled with his eyes still closed. “Is this some more of your practical magic?”

Zach kissed him again, grasping the back of his neck to keep him still; making sure the apparition was real and not going anywhere. 

Chris mouthed his cheek, lips tracings the sensitive skin of the ear as he whispered, “Or maybe I just missed you—every damn day I’ve missed you. And I decided not to wait for your call anymore.”

Chris put his arm around Zach’s shoulders, pulling him in for another world-stopping kiss—mouth open and pliant, warm and deep. When Zach was breathless and dizzy from happiness, he contented with just hugging Chris—feeling the weight of him as they swayed in place, hoping he could feel the weight of him, always.

When Zach looked over Chris’ shoulder, noticing the California license plates by his driveway, he finally noticed the pink, yellow, and red tulips by the passenger door, welcoming spring. 

***

 _Dear Little Z – You better be in the Caribbean reading this, and not some sneak who noticed I folded this into one of your socks – you’re just like your dad, you know. Fucking anal in noticing the little details._

 _But even so, Miss Z - your Uncle Joey has things to say to you. For instance, right now your dad is pacing in the next room, worried out of his mind that you’re leaving us, while Chris is employing logic and reason where logic and reason don’t make sense._

 _But I can’t begrudge you finding your blood relatives. Not in the slightest. Hell, I always knew mine, and I still flew the coop in search of where I belonged. It’s not something people can really tell you, it’s something you gotta find for yourself. _

 _And I wouldn’t be worried either, Zoe, if it weren’t for over-hearing what you said to Chris the other night – “It’ll be nice feeling normal somewhere.”_

 _Little Z, I love you as if you were my own, so trust me when I say: You’ll never feel normal anywhere.  
I spent a lot of years in wanderlust, thinking all the bohos and the addicts and the artists were my friends. I remember sleeping with Anya the Russian temptress, who I thought understood me completely, but wound up just not speaking English. There was Silvia who did, at least, some some – but she suffered for her art, and I was only a medium. Then there were the tarot card readers and fortune tellers that pointed me towards love and riches, while I slept with sleazy businessmen, slept in barns, slept in cardboard boxes - thinking real knowledge was fighting it out under bridges and not getting caught. _

 _I don’t really regret those things. What I do regret is that my wanderlust never told me what I really wanted – that all I wanted was to be someone else, be like everyone else, if only for a little while. _

 _Don’t forget Zoe, that your Dad and I know what it’s like to grow up witches. Without a dad, without fitting in with the other kids. We both had our years, it seems, of trying to be something that we’re not._

 _I don’t think that’s what you’re doing, really. Sometimes, to figure things out, ya just gotta stare in the eye of someone who looks like you. I hope when you meet your abuela y mamá that pieces fit together for you. That you’re happy and loved and find out all the things that you’ve been dying to know._

 _But, Zoe – when you come home? Please stare us in the eye, too. Look at us and be completely honest. Maybe we’re more alike than you think – all of us, too, are just like you. Even Chris, whose little heathen soul we’re gonna con one of these days – all of us mismatched lost souls, who somehow found a home in this creaky old house in Pittsburgh._

 _If that isn’t the definition of belonging, I don’t know what is. _

 _We love you so much, Zoe. Your dad, in the next room losing his mind, has loved you since the moment he laid eyes on you. Grandma and Oma, though ornery and difficult, adore and love you in their own way. Anton – well, you know how he is. He’ll start moping in the next week when he misses bugging the shit out of you. And Chris – well, you probably know more than I do, since it amazes me how he became your closest confidante, both of you joined at the hip at dealing with the lot of us._

 _And Little Z, if it isn’t quite obvious, you’re one of the few people in this world who give my life meaning. I love you and miss you already._

 _Down there in the tropics – please don’t forget about us and all that we’ve taught you. Carry basil for love, bay leaves for protection. Leave flowers out for the fairies and quartz for the Earth. Blow a kiss to the full moon when you see Her, and don’t underestimate the feelings in your gut._

 _But most of all, Little Z – never, ever stop hoping. For everything, for everyone. Out of all the gifts the Gods can give us, this is the only one that truly comes from ourselves. _

 _Love you, Zoe. I hope for your safe return – Uncle Joey_

  



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